Fairy Tales

PRINCESSES AND PEAS

	In Mary Jane Auch’s The Princess and the Pizza (Holiday House, 2003), Princess Paulina enters the competition for the hand of Prince Drupert, and finds that eleven other princesses are also in the running – among them one with a very long braid and another accompanied by seven little men. Paulina breezes through the pea-under-the-mattress and glass-slipper tests, but the cooking test has her stymied – until, inadvertently, out of what looked to be a culinary disaster, she invents pizza. She wins the competition hands-down, but decides not to marry Drupert after all, and instead opens a village Pizza Palace. For ages 4-8.
	In Tony Wilson’s The Princess and the Packet of Frozen Peas (Peachtree Publishers, 2012), Prince Henrik’s sister-in-law Princess Eva is a real princess – she passed the pea test – but the complaining Eva doesn’t suit Henrik at all: he wants a girl who shares his love of camping and hockey. So he devises his own test involving a sleeping bag and a package of frozen peas (and finds the perfect bride). For ages 4-8.
	In Janet Perlman’s The Penguin and the Pea (Kids Can Press, 2006), a bedraggled penguin shows up at the royal castle, claiming to be a princess. A (more or less) straightforward version of the tale. With penguins. For ages 4-8.
	In Tony Johnston’s The Cowboy and the Black-Eyed Pea (Puffin, 1996), gorgeous Farethee Well, daughter of a wealthy Texas rancher, knows how to tell a real cowboy from a fake: tuck a black-eyed pea under his saddle blanket. For ages 5-8.
	Mini Grey’s The Very Smart Pea and the Princess-to-Be (Dragonfly Books, 2011) tells the tale of the Princess and the Pea from the point of view of the…pea. The story opens in the palace garden, where the pea – who always knew it was slated for greatness – is picked and taken to the queen. The queen has advertised for a real princess, but none of the applicants fill the bill – until the pea at last decides to intervene. It spends the night hypnotically whispering in the sleeper’s ear about something “Large and Round and Very Uncomfortable in the bed.” That does the trick, and the prince’s bride-to-be turns out to be the little gardener shown in previous pages in the book, working in the gardens. For ages 6-9.
	Lauren Child’s entrancing The Princess and the Pea (Hyperion, 2006) is a humorous modernization of the familiar fairy tale with marvelous illustrations of clever cut-paper characters combined with color photographs of real objects. A delight for all ages.
	Don’t miss Once Upon a Mattress (G), a wonderful take on the princess-and-pea story, starring Carol Burnett as Princess Winnifred (a.k.a. Fred).

MULTICULTURAL FAIRY TALES

	Caldecott Honor winner Rachel Isadora has written and illustrated several picture-book versions of classic Grimm fairy tales set in Africa, among them Rapunzel (Putnam Juvenile Books, 2008) (in which the prince rides a zebra); The Princess and the Pea; Hansel and Gretel; The Twelve Dancing Princesses; and The Fisherman and his Wife.
	The Oryx Multicultural Folktale Series books are collections of many different versions of the same tale from a range of cultures, along with historical background information, notes, and activity suggestions. Titles include Judy Sierra’s Cinderella (Oryx Press, 1992), Betsy Hearne’s Beauties and Beasts (1993), and Margaret Read MacDonald’s Tom Thumb (1993).
	MULTICULTURAL CINDERELLAS
	In Shirley Climo’s The Egyptian Cinderella (HarperCollins, 1992), the slave girl Rhodopsis loses a rose-red sandal and ends up marrying the pharaoh. Also see Climo’s The Korean Cinderella (HarperCollins, 1996), in which the lovely Pear Blossom, with help from a magical frog, sparrow, and black ox, attends the village festival and wins the heart of the wealthy magistrate; and The Persian Cinderella (HarperCollins, 2001), which involves a magic jug and a diamond ankle bracelet.
	In Ai-Ling Louie’s Yeh-Shen: A Cinderella Story from China (Puffin, 1996), Yeh-Shen goes to the spring festival and wins the heart of the prince with the help of a magic fish.
	Rafe Martin’s The Rough-Face Girl (Puffin, 1998) is an Algonquin Cinderella tale in which the fire-scarred heroine deservedly triumphs. Also see Robert D. San Souci’s Sootface (Dragonfly Books, 1997), an Ojibwa Cinderella.
	In Rebecca Hickox’s The Golden Sandal: A Middle Eastern Cinderella Story (Holiday House, 1999), Maha, a poor fisherman’s daughter, is helped by a magic red fish.
	Robert D. Sans Souci’s Cendrillon: A Caribbean Cinderella (Aladdin, 2002), told from the godmother’s point of view, involves an enchanted breadfruit coach, agouti horses, and a pair of bright pink slippers.
	Alan Schroeder’s Smoky Mountain Rose: An Appalachian Cinderella (Puffin, 2000), told in down-home dialect, features a square dance and a fairy godmother/talking pig.
	In Jewell Reinhart Coburn’s Domitila: A Cinderella Tale from the Mexican Tradition (Shens Books, 2000), Domitila, a terrific cook and talented leatherworker, wins the heart of the governor’s son.
	In John Steptoe’s Mufaro’s Beautiful Daughters (Puffin, 2008), a Cinderella tale in the African tradition, Mufaro has two beautiful daughters, one selfish and bad-tempered, one kind and generous.
	In Marianna Mayer’s Baba Yaga and Vasilisa the Brave (HarperCollins, 1994), a Russian Cinderella tale, Vasilisa, abused by her stepmother and stepsisters, is sent to live with the fearsome witch Baba Yaga in her house of bones. She succeeds in pleasing the witch with the help of a magical doll, the gift of her dead mother – and ends up living happily ever after, married to the tsar.
	In The Orphan: A Cinderella Story from Greece (Schwartz & Wade, 2011) by Anthony Manna and Soula Mitakidou, Sun, Moon, Dawn, and the Sea – who donates a pair of blue shoes – all collaborate to help the orphan find her prince.
	Mindy Dwyer’s The Salmon Princess: An Alaska Cinderella Story (Sasquatch Books, 2004) features red-headed Cinder, an eagle spirit fairy godmother, and a lost fishing boot.
	Meredith Babeaux Brucker’s Anklet for a Princess: A Cinderella Story from India (Shens Books, 2002) features a godfather Snake, a gold-threaded sari, and a diamond anklet.
	In Charlotte Huck’s Princess Furball (Greenwillow Books, 1994), a motherless princess – whose greedy father plans to marry her to a wealthy ogre – escapes disguised in a coat made from the skins of a thousand animals. She becomes a servant in a neighboring king’s kitchen, and manages to attend the prince’s ball, where she drops tokens in his soup and captures his heart.
	In Shirley Climo’s The Irish Cinderlad, red-headed young Becan – who has simply enormous feet – is miserable when his father brings home a stepmother and three unpleasant stepsisters. In lieu of a fairy godmother, Becan has a magical speckled bull who, by bequeathing him his tail, helps him kill a giant and a dragon and win the hand of the Princess Finola.
	From the American Library Association, Multicultural Cinderella Stories by Mary Northrup is a long annotated list, categorized under Africa, the Americas, Asia, Europe, and the Middle East. Also included is a list of Cinderella parodies with suggested activities.
	From the Asia Society, Twice Upon a Time: Multi-Cultural Cinderella is an elementary-level lesson plan in which kids read and discuss several different versions of Cinderella stories (a book list is included). Accompanying activities include mapping Cinderella settings on a world map, inventing a new Cinderella story based in a specific country, and making a Cinderella collage.
	Cinderella Stories: A Multicultural Unit summarizes a large number of different tales and provides a printable student chart to be used for comparing and analyzing stories.