Glass Slipper, Gold Sandal: A Reading Response

     Paul Fleischman's Glass Slipper, Gold Sandal: A Worldwide Cinderella retells the favorite fairy tale classic drawing on all her incarnations through various cultures.  This book is an insight to multicultural perspectives of the same story, weaving details from versions of various countries together in a story that is new but familiar.  From the opening of the book we get a sense that we are about to be taken on a journey around the world with the maps that are displayed on the endpapers in green and blue.  The title page has the image of the world surrounded by the types of shoes that have been worn by Cinderella in her stories across the globe.  Each page shares a piece of the Cinderella story from the perspective of a different culture that is highlighted through the artwork that frames it. 

     Julie Paschkis, who illustrated the book, admits that she drew her folk art style for the illustrations from textiles from around the world.  The folk art illustrations of the book are bright and colorful and serve as an extension of sharing images from the country that each part of the story is shared from.  Some pages share a piece of the story, while others share multiple.  Each boldly colorful picture is framed, high-lighting the image that depicts the culture of each Cinderella.  Though the words are minimal in their passages, they are framed to emphasize their content.  Both the framing of the words and the picture that corresponds draws the eye to these elements.  Two tone backgrounds with folk art images reinforce the multicultural stories being woven together.

     Fleichman's Cinderella moves through the countries sharing cultural in sight until at the very end she is married with the Great King.  In this final page we see the foods from other countries that are feasted on emphasized by country in different colored blocks.  The illustration of the different versions of Cinderella's dancing with their husbands takes up both pages emphasizing the celebration while making us aware of the differences that can be seen the images representing each country while all representing the same girl.