Books From the Striped House
Pop! Pop! Pop! Have you seen the pop-up books that are being made these days? If you haven’t, you ought to. They have evolved exponentially in recent years into surprisingly entertaining books even adults are fascinated by (something important when reading to a child!). This review is on Mathew Reinhart’s adaptation of Cinderella; it is an absolute delight with easy-to-read text, colorful drawings and of course, an abundance of intricately engineered pop-up delights with an overall magical feel that will delight any child or adult.
But wait, what does Cinderella have to do with the Chinese New Year? Actually, they have a lot to do with each other! Did you know that the first version of Cinderella goes all the way back to the 9th century in China? That’s right, the first version can be traced all the way back 1,200 years to the story of Ye Xian, the Chinese Cinderella! It appeared in the book Miscellaneous Morsels from Youyang, and is too similar to the Cinderella that we all know to deny (the fairy godmother is Ye Xian’s late mother in the form of a fish and the glass shoe is a golden slipper).
Reinhart has taken this ancient classic tale and added another dimension to it, literally! With his visionary version of Cinderella, we can further appreciate this ancient classic Chinese tale with a few pops in it! This is a great book for reading to children for all those English teachers teaching children or perhaps as a present. Check out some other pop-up books as well: The Jungle Book, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, the Wonderful Wizard of OZ and many more! Happy reading!
Brought to you by Tokyo Random Walk (Roppongi)
