Yeh-Shen: A Cinderella Story from China

Yeh-Shen is the Chinese Cinderella, and the case for owning it is straightforward: it is the older of the two stories by about nine hundred years. The version we know in the West — the slipper, the stepsisters, the ball, the prince — descends from a tale recorded by the 9th-century Chinese official Tuan Cheng-shih in his miscellany Yu-yang tsa-tsu. Ai-Ling Louie’s picture book retells that earlier source: Yeh-Shen is the kind girl, the stepmother is cruel, the magic helper is not a fairy godmother but a fish whose bones retain their power even after the stepmother kills her. The golden slipper, the festival, the king, the recognition — all of it is here, in its original form.

Louie is a careful reteller. She doesn’t try to make the story sound Western or modernize it. Her sentences are short, her tone is folkloric, and she leaves the cultural specifics intact (the festival is a spring festival, the king is in a recognizably Tang setting, the magic fish behaves like a Chinese river spirit rather than a generic European fairy).

Ed Young illustrates, six years before he won the Caldecott Medal for Lon Po Po. His art here is recognizably the same hand — the same vertical panel breaks, the same ink-and-pastel washes — but slightly more decorative, slightly less dark. The fish is rendered with affection; the slipper is rendered as a single glowing object across a deep blue spread; Yeh-Shen herself is small in the frame and growing.

For a household that has read the European Cinderella to death, this is the companion that reframes the story. For a child curious about Chinese folktales generally, this is a strong first stop along with Lon Po Po and The Empty Pot.

Stays in print from Puffin in paperback. Worth pairing with Lon Po Po for households building an Ed Young shelf.