The Korean Cinderella

While browsing through the children’s section of the Williamsburg public library, I stumbled upon Shirley Climo’s The Korean Cinderella. I was instantly drawn to it because I used another of her books, The Egyptian Cinderella, while teaching at the Children’s Museum of Richmond last summer. The reason this book appeals to me is because a familiar story (that of Cinderella) is told, although it incorporates learning about a foreign culture. This juxtaposition of the familiar and the novel seems to be a god way to capture and hold young readers’ attention.

I am often guilty of selecting a book based almost entirely on its cover, and this book’s cover did not disappoint me. A close-up of part of a girl’s face appears on the cover. She is wearing a crown and covering the rest of her face with what appears to be a fan. She is surrounded by a flower blossom and blue, orange, and green designs. The reader immediately wonders about this girl and about what the various elements on the cover have to do with her story.

The girl on the cover turns out to be the Korean version of Cinderella. The girl, Pear Blossom, lives in ancient Korea, and her story parallels the basic elements of the American Cinderella story. Her mother dies while she is a young girl, and her father remarries a mean widow who also has a daughter. Her step-mother orders the girl about and forces her to wait on both herself and her daughter. After cleverly outsmarting the widow with the help of animals, Pear Blossom loses her shoe and meets the magistrate. She ends up marrying him and living happily ever after.

The book’s illustrations add to the story. For example, accompanying the first page of text is a picture of a couple with a baby. Looking out of the clouds and down on the couple and baby is a cow, sparrows, and a frog. These animals later come to have significance in the story. All of the illustrations take up the full page, with the text appearing on alternating pages. Each of the pictures are bordered with what appears to be a traditional Korean decorative patterns, usually composed of blues, greens, purples, and oranges. This border works with the Korean words in the text to bring an added element of Korean culture to the book as well as to contain the full-page illustrations.

Climo integrates both simple narrative and dialogue into this book in order to make it seem like a more realistic story. It is both accessible and interesting to the reader. Some Korean words are integrated into the text, and although they are not particularly difficult, they could pose some problems to a young reader. Although these words are a necessary element of the book because they infuse an added element of Korean culture into the story, it might be best for a parent to read this book to his or her child.

The easiest work to make connections to is the well-known American version of the Cinderella tale. There are really only a few variations from the version of Cinderella I grew up with; instead of a fairy godmother, animals are responsible for looking out for Pear Blossom; instead of two stepsisters, Pear Blossom has one. In both the American and Korean versions a girl’s mother dies; her father marries a mean widow with a daughter (or daughters); the girl’s new mother is mean to her; the girl overcomes the tasks given to her by her step-mother through the help of kind beings; the girl loses a shoe; she falls in love with and marries a government official. This book also reminded me of Climo’s The Egyptian Cinderella for obvious reasons—the shared subject matter.

Shirley Climo’s The Korean Cinderella offers young readers a chance to be exposed to a different culture within the comfortable environment of a well-known fairy tale. This incorporation of new and comforting elements is important for children to learn about cultures other than their own. It is important to keep in mind that this book should not be used in isolation as a single demonstration of the Korean culture but should be used as a tool to foster more integrated learning and discussion of cultures from around the world.