Thursday, March 27, 2008

Smokey Mountain Rose


Title: Smoky Mountain Rose an Appalachian Cinderella
Author: Alan Schroeder
Illustrator: Brad Sneed
Genre: Picture Book, Traditional literature, Folk Tale
Publisher: Puffin Books, 1997
Grade Level: k-5

Summary: Rose’s father, a trapper, gets married to a widow in town with two daughters. The two daughters of Gertie, the new mother, were mean and vain. Annie and Liza the two mean sisters made poor Rose do every chore. The father could see what was going on and it broke his heart but he figured it would start to much commotion if he tried to say anything, because talking to Gertie was like “kickin’ an agritated rattler.” After a while the father died, Rose was heartbroken. After Gertie lit into Rose about mopping around, she was about worked to death doing all the chores. There was a rich young man on the other side of the creek. “Made his fortune in snowbellies and grits” they say. Well his folks decided to have a “shindig” were they invite the entire town, to see if he could find him a wife. After the two snobby daughters leave with Gertie, Rose is cryin and one of the hogs tells her to get up real fast “like ye got a whompus cat bitin’ at yer britches” and her rags turned into a beautiful party dress. So with a watermelon and two field mice Rose had her a big wagon and two horses. And the final touch was a pair of glass slippers. As soon as she walked into the barn for the square dance seb, the rich young man, ran right up to her. at midnight she ran out the door and tried to hurry home, in the process she lost one of her slippers. Seb went around to all the twon trying to find who could fit in the glass slipper, and of course Rose’s foot fit perfect. After the two step sister figured Rose was marring into money they acted like real sisters treating her nice. And Rose was to sweet to do anything but be nice.

Response: This is absolutely my all time favorite Cinderella story. And honestly I think it is now my second favorite children’s book. I LOVED the way this story was written the dialect was priceless. I found myself laughing while I was reading it trying to say all the words out loud. You fall in love with sweet Rose right from the beginning. She is the most humbling character I have ever seen. I almost would have preferred illustrations that made the character more beautiful, for example with not such large hips and such. But I think it’s meant to portray the look of the Appalachian people so I definitely don’t mind it! I loved everything down to the fact that the pig was the fairy godmother. Everything about this tale made me smile!

Teaching Ideas: I would use this story in telling about literature and Cinderella stories for sure. I would also use this in social studies when discussing geography I would use this story with any grade looking at dialect. It is so unique and this story shows it perfectly. I would allow my students to research this culture especially, because it a culture that is alive in our own state that many people don’t know about. I would have them put together a creative venn diagram of similarities and differences with their own culture.

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