Jouanah's shocking introduction to her newly-translated mother is the unforeseen crisis point where her young life takes a sudden and decisive turn. Her story takes readers to the remote mountains of Southeast Asia, to the traditional home of the Laotian Hmong. All essential Cinderella elements are here to enthrall readers of all ages. Gorgeous artwork remains faithful in the depiction of the Hmong lifestyle and the high mountain villages. Now in its 4th printing, this book has been a classic addition to children's literature everywhere.

This book is about Jouanah as a cinderella who both her parents trick by the step mother. Jouanah have to go through hardship and on the New Year festival she met her prince charming who help her escape hell. I like this book but it very similar to the original cinderella and will use it for my class because kids love folktale. It suitable for grade fourth to eight.

This book is perfect for students who have read Cinderella before because they understand the story even though the clothing and scenery is different. This book is helpful for students to learn about the culture in Thailand. For example, in the illustrations they show the environment they live in like on the first page they show huts with wood and straw with animals around. Children can easily notice that the environment is much different from the environment which we live in. Also the names in the book are unique, such as Hmong and Jouanah. In the story the main little girl wheres a head wrap and a long dress that is different from the kind of dresses children wear here, which is helpful for the children to see other clothing from other countries. The children will also be able to compare and contrast in the story the similarities between this Cinderella and the one we are familiar with. For example, both stories have to deal with a boy seeing a pretty girl and finding her shoe, the story differs with only one ugly sister and instead they call her new sister. I very much liked this story because of the similarities and differences this book shared with the original Cinderella story. I also liked how the story was worded, for example at the end of the story instead of just saying they lived happily ever after, the author said, "There, it is said, they lived long, happy lives, turning the sadness Jouanah had known into endless joy." The story is a very sweet story about love, kindness, and hope and I recommend for everyone. ( )

This was a wonderful story, similar to the Cinderella story we all know and love. I really liked the story line and plot, and I think children would really enjoy reading or hearing it. It would be great to have when needing diverse books in the library. ( )

I thought this book was a pretty good book, just very different than the cinderella stories I am used to reading. A reason I really enjoyed this book was the illustrations. They were beautiful and full of so many different colors. The illustrations grabbed my attention right away. For example, on one of the pages there is a picture of Jouanah in a dress and the dress is all different colors. Its a black background with a red, orange, green, yellow, and purple patterned dress.The color coordination on these illustrations are great. Another interesting thing I noticed and liked about this book was the vocabulary. For example, the book uses words like "slyly," and "scheming." The adjectives in this story are very intelligent words that I would consider academic language. So, not only are the readers learning about a different culture, they are also learning better ways to use adjectives. The over all idea of the book is to show readers a different cinderella story from a different culture. ( )