The Korean Cinderella

Climo, S. (1993). The korean cinderella. Mexico: Harper Collins Publishers. 24 pp. ISBN: 0-06-

020433-8

Climo writes an interesting story that we all know and love. The story of the Korean Cinderella follows the same story line, but there is Korean words included in the text. The story is a little darker than the "Disney" Cinderella that most people are familiar with. The story has different animals, food, and instead of a glass slipper, she looses her sandal. The story line is slightly different as well. The Prince is called a young magistrate, and the evil step-mother thinks that Cinderella stole some things. So the mother assumes that Cinderella will get caught by the magistrate.
The teacher could have the student's write down the differences between this story and the "Disney" Cinderella. The story is different from the "Disney" that most student's will know so they will be able to pick up lots of differences. The teacher could talk about why those differences might be important to Korean people. This would be another great story to go with a folktale unit. Folktales are a great way to show how a tale can appear all around the world, and people change the story based on what is important to their culture.