The Golden Sandal by Rebecca Hickox is a variation of the traditional story of Cinderella, with a middle eastern spin to it. Maha is a young girl who begs her widowed father to remarry so that she could have a mother again. Her father eventually remarries to please Maha, but his new wife give Maha chore after chore and mistreats her. One day, Maha was retrieving fish from her father's boat and a red fish spoke to hear, pleading for its life. Maha reached into the basket and freed the fish, he then told her that she would be rewarded for her kindness with wishes. When Maha told her father about the fish her stepmother demanded that she go retrieve it. When she saw the little fish he gave her a coin to give to her stepmother, who still was not impressed. For the next few years Maha still had to complete chores and depended on the little fish to help her when times were very hard. There was a Henna festival for a local bride, Maha desperately wanted to go but her stepmother denied her, she went to the little fish and asked him what to do. The fish told her to go to the festival but to leave before her stepmother. The rest of the story plays out much like the traditional Cinderella, and Maha is saved from her wicked stepmother...
I would use this story in the classroom to once again share different culture's versions of traditional tales that students are familiar with. The illustrations in this book are also a great example of showing multicultural pictures. I would ask students to identify pieces of the story that are different than what they are a used to. Also students could write in their own version of Cinderella with their own twist to the story added in.
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