The Golden Sandal: A Middle Eastern Cinderella Story
Author: Rebecca Hickox
Illustrator: Will Hillenbrand
Published: In 1998 by Holiday House
ISBN: 978-0548270080
Synopsis:
In this Middle Eastern version of Cinderella we follow the story of a sweet young fisherman's daughter named Maha. Following the tradition of many other Cinderella figures, Maha finds herself at the mercy of her jealous stepmother. However, instead of a Fairy God Mother, Maha receives a little help from a little red fish she saved from amongst her father's catch. The differences continue when he helps Maha attend a wealthy bride's pre-wedding celebration, instead of a ball. In fact she never officially meets her prince at all; not until after they're married, that is. And so the story of Cinderella is told once again --only this time conveyed with an Arabic spin.
My Reaction:
The Golden Sandal is a very interesting Cinderella tale. It is the first one I have encountered in which the Cinderella character --Maha-- doesn't meet her prince figure --Tariq-- until after they are married. In fact, in this version of the tale Maha doesn't have any choice about whether she marries Tariq or not. When his mother discovers that the golden sandal fits Maha's foot she immediately hands the stepmother a purse of gold and decrees, "your stepdaugther is now betrothed to my eldest son." This idea of arranged marriage is one that may seem foreign to many western children living in the United States. I'll admit that it definitely took me by surprise. This reminded me of how ease it is to forget about how different cultural ideologies can be. This being the case, I think a comparison between this version and the more classically known Cinderella would be a great way to introduce the idea of cultural diversity, in both practice and ideology.
Unfortunately, this book is probably not the best choice for opening this kind of discussion on culture because the illustrations in it seem to lack the rich Arab culture that shines through the prose. The portrayal of the characters and the cultural style of their clothes are not consistent throughout the book. Often, the clothing of the different characters seems to clash because different characters garbs appear to come from different time periods and locations. For instances, at the brides pre-wedding ceremony, the ugly stepsister's dress appears to 18th century Jane Austen. Frankly, if you were to take some of the illustrations completely out of context I would have had no idea that it was supposed to depict a story set in Iran. I guess this is a case where I do not feel the illustrations do the written word justice.
Unfortunately, this book is probably not the best choice for opening this kind of discussion on culture because the illustrations in it seem to lack the rich Arab culture that shines through the prose. The portrayal of the characters and the cultural style of their clothes are not consistent throughout the book. Often, the clothing of the different characters seems to clash because different characters garbs appear to come from different time periods and locations. For instances, at the brides pre-wedding ceremony, the ugly stepsister's dress appears to 18th century Jane Austen. Frankly, if you were to take some of the illustrations completely out of context I would have had no idea that it was supposed to depict a story set in Iran. I guess this is a case where I do not feel the illustrations do the written word justice.
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