GLASS SLIPPER, GOLD SANDAL: A Worldwide Cinderella, by Paul Fleischman

Quick Facts:
- Illustrated by Julie Paschkis
- 28 pages

Glass Slipper, Gold Sandal is a cleverly conceived and gorgeously realized patchwork of various elements found in the Cinderella stories told all over the world. While it is not the most satisfying stand-alone Cinderella tale I've read, it does an excellent job bringing diverse versions of the tale together in to a coherent whole that, ultimately, leaves the reader wanting to know more about the stories from which each individual piece was sourced.

One of the greatest challenges of this book comes from its aim to not only bring together many versions of the same story but to simultaneously highlight the culture of each contribution. After all, flagging the text of each section with its country of origin (Russia! Iran! India!) would be distracting and interrupt the flow of the story. It would detract from that message that despite the variances, the story remains structurally same.

Author Paul Fleischman and illustrator Julie Paschkis meet this challenge through coordination of the text layout and the accompanying illustrations.

Notice how Fleischman separated the text by its country of origin, and then how Paschkis framed each chunk of text with artwork representative of that country. Though the country of origin for each section is clearly identified, it is identified in the illustration and done in the same colors as the illustration. The effect of this is to allow the text and primary illustrations (such as the Cinderella in a kimono) to draw the reader's initial attention and focus. Thus, the story maintains its flow as a single, cohesive tale. However, the segmenting emphasizes the way in which different aspects of the tale were drawn from different sources, with those sources visually and textually represented for those who care to examine closer the story's diversity.

Paschkis' folk-art style also contributes to the cohesiveness of the story as a whole. Though contributing countries are made distinct both with color and with the presentation of people and setting within each scene (see the distinctly Chinese style of the fish in the red section, in comparison to the purple Indonesian crocodile), they are also bound by the folk art style. This suggests, again, that though each culture has its own way of telling the story of Cinderella, they are all ultimately telling the same story.

One aspect of this book I found particularly interesting was the decision to bookend the Cinderella story with images of a woman reading Glass Slipper, Gold Sandal to a little girl. Narratively, this underscores the oral tradition of the story across cultures, and the way it has been passed down through generations. However, Paschkis' decision to depict the woman and girl as different ethnicities is clearly a conscious one. I say woman and girl, rather than mother and daughter, because I think the relationship between these two figures is deliberately ambiguous.

The most obvious interpretation is, of course, that it is a mother reading to her daughter. In this context, the image reflects a multi-cultural family. However, I think it is more powerful to consider the woman as simply representative of an older generation, and the girl representative of the younger one. They are of different ethnicities because, actually, their ethnicity doesn't matter any more than does their relationship. The message of the book is that these tales have been passed for hundreds of years from one generation of another, through the sharing of stories. This image, as well as the similar one at the book's opening, reflects this.