Egyptian Cinderella

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Images Donate icon An illustration of a heart shape Donate Ellipses icon An illustration of text ellipses. As a small girl, I would have just relished the familiar retelling of my all-time favorite fairy tale. Scholastic shares that the The Egyptian Cinderella was a Notable 1989 Children’s Trade Books in Social Studies. also Nikos Litinas, “Strabo’s Sources in the Light of a Tale", in: Daniela Dueck, Hugh Lindsay, Sarah Pothecary (edd. Then, this Egyptian version can be read to them, and students can compare and contrast the two, and discuss how the story changes when it takes place somewhere else.

Egyptian history and culture can be covered during Social Studies, geometry of pyramids (and triangles) and logistics of the Egyptian economy could be discussed during Math, Egyptian plant life and embalming of mummies can be discussed during math, and ELA will involve the ideas discussed below. For her eyes are as green as the Nile, her hair as feathery as papyrus, and her skin the pink of a lotus flower’”. The main character, Rhodopis, is stole and sold to slaves where she undergoes a lot of bullying because she looks different than the other Egyptian girls. This is an excitingly different version of the Cinderella tale rooted in some true facts and fables (There is a Greek slave girl named Rhodopis who married the Pharaoh Amasis).while others object to the idea that the villains of the piece (such as they are) are darker-skinned than the heroine. Her boss sees her dancing one night and decides to get her a pair of shiny, rose-gold sandals for her dainty feet. As the story shows the Pharaoh’s journey, the Egyptian servant girls are dealt with some unlucky events, showing jealousy and rudeness. Maybe this was all in the original story, but in this day and age that comes across as pretty racist.

The illustrations have colorful backgrounds and the characters stand out because of their dark hair and skin in contrast with the bright background. Our resources are crucial for knowledge lovers everywhere—so if you find all these bits and bytes useful, please pitch in. The story was available as a read-aloud and the reader positioned the book so you could view the pictures and words. The story uses traditional Egyptian aspects to tell the story of Cinderella and also weaves in academic words such as papyrus or Pharoah. One thing I noticed while reading is that it incorporates the geography of Egypt into it (ex: The Nile river and the Mediterranean Sea).One day he saw her dancing with some animals and loved her dancing so much he gifted her a beautiful slipper. The main differences are the lack of a godmother, there are no stepsisters or stepmother, and no father. While the servants were gone, a falcon, the symbol of the god Horus, snatched one of her rose-red slippers and flew away. While both types of stories are fictional and did not happen in real life, realistic fiction has elements that could be true, while folktales usually contain magical elements, or people that have magical powers. Somethings that I had an issue with this book is that, we see from the beginning that Rhodopis is Green with fair skin and the other girls are Egyptian with olive toned skin.

The children also used this story as inspiration for an 'alternative fairytale' and re-wrote Jack and the Beanstalk using inspiration from this story. Three Egyptian servant girls serve as the wicked step sisters, a kind master is the godmother (who also provides the slippers), and there is a handsome pharaoh that serves as the prince charming. It was like the story was saying she was the most deserving girl of all simply because she wasn't Egyptian like all the others, not necessarily because she was kinder than her peers.Rhodopis, the Cinderella figure, is described as "red" and "rosy" (hence her name), because she burns under the Egyptian sun, but she is essentially a white heroine with brown bad guys. One day, when Rhodopis was dancing, the King rewarded her with especially made, sparkly slippers for her to wear while she danced. The story takes on Cinderella from the Egyptian perspective rather than the more traditional approach.

In the world of the ancient Mediterranean, by contrast, slavery was largely situational - one could become a slave through defeat in warfare, through capture by pirates, and (in some cultures) through debt - and was not necessarily a permanent, multi-generational condition. While she was cleaning mud got on her slippers and she left them on the shore to dry after washing them.I like this version of Cinderella but she is Greek instead of Egyptian; I suppose they did this because Cleopatra's family was Greek. This book can raise many questions which will be good to explore with chn during shared or guided reading.