Cinderella, Chinese Style

When I looked for Lon Po Po: A Red-Riding Hood Story from China on Amazon.com it said that I would probably like this book, Yeh-Shen A Cinderella Story from China, also by the same illustrator. Since I enjoyed the first book I figured I'd look into this one.

Yeh-Shen is the daughter of a mother and father who have died and whose father's second wife becomes her guardian. The stepmother has a daughter too who is not nearly as pretty as Yeh-Shen and she makes Yeh-Shen do many chores and gives her very little to eat. Yeh-Shen's only enjoyment is life is feeding a fish in a nearby pond. Evil mean stepmother finds out and kills the fish, but the bones are magical and Yeh-Shen keeps them and talks to them often. When a big festival is going to happen in the village the stepmother allows only her daughter to go, but Yeh-Shen's magic fish bones create for her a wonderful azure gown and gold threaded slippers. She is told not to lose her slippers and she whisks off to the merriment.

Of course noone knows this beautiful girl and she has a wonderful time until her stepmom and sister see her and she runs off and loses her slipper in the process. When the king is brought the slipper he attempts to find the owner. But noone's foot is small enough, until Yeh-Shen and when she puts it on her azure gown returns and the king is so awed by her beautiful that he falls in love immediately and they marry and everyone can visit the palace except the stepmother and stepsister, of which it is said that one day they are crushed to death by falling stones.

This story is extremely similar to the American version of Cinderella, but it has plenty of differences. A discussion could easily be had with a child about the similarities and differences. I liked how it wasn't a fairy godmother, but rather a fish spirit. It made the story seem older and more legendary.

The story itself is retold by Ai-Ling Louis and there is a lot of text on each page, generally 2-5 paragraphs and the writing is rather small for a 30 page children's book. This amount of text really helped flush out the plot of this tale. I would recommend the reading level as being for ages 6-9. However the illustrations make this a good book to read to younger children as well.

The pictures are done in what looks like color pencils, watercolors, and pen. But there are some accents that appear to done in something else, maybe paint. One illustration of the stepmother has her wearing gold bracelets that really seem to shine on the page. The pictures represent what is going on in the story well. Although you are told Yeh-Shen is beautiful you don't actually see her face until the end. But it doesn't detract from the story at all. I really liked the illustrations and some of the pictures of the fish spirit looked really neat.

The only negative thing was the demise of the stepsister and stepmother by falling/flying stones. Although it's not as bad as the American version (in my opinion) and there is no illustration of it.

Another plus of this book is that at the beginning of the book is the history of the story, which dates back to the T'ang dynasty (618-907 A.D.). The next page has the whole story written in Chinese characters, which is always interesting for children to see other culture's languages.

Overall I really enjoyed this book. The story is entertaining and the illustrations really add to the story. I recommend this book to any child under 10 and any person age 10 or over will still probably find this story very enjoyable.