One of the fascinating and mysterious things about folklore is that the same story types appear all over the world. Here’s a single picture book that tells a Cinderella-type story as found in several different cultures.
I think children would need to first be familiar with a single, cohesive version of this story in order to appreciate this book, but that is easily done. There are plenty of terrific stand-alone picture books of Cinderella, Cendrillon, etc., including our old friend John Steptoe‘s Mufaro’s Beautiful Daughters.
What do you make of this one? Notice how the story is made cohesive, yet also kept separate, thanks mostly to Paschkis’s illustrations and the book’s design. Does this work for you? For children?