WHEN CINDERELLA'S EMBROIDERED SCARF IS RIPPED AT A HORSE RACE, she is heartbroken and desperate to find it. Fortunately, the Prince finds the missing piece of her scarf, and in a beautiful union, they make vows to one another to continue keeping their cultural heritage alive.
The plot of the story, settings, characters, and sequence of events have grown with the author throughout the years while she was researching and teaching various topics in bilingual and multicultural education. The message and moral of the story promote the importance of cultural heritage and how to keep it alive, through the art of cross-stitching embroidery and other family traditions. Using an interdisciplinary approach, teachers can design a thematic unit focusing on the story of Cinderella from different cultural perspectives. This can effectively build a deeper understanding of diversity, and the value of cultural identity and heritage preservation.
About the Author
Dr. Hamsa Mahafza is an Arab-American educator and researcher. She is a faculty member at the College of Education at the University of Alabama in Huntsville and is a 2022 Honors College faculty fellow. She received her Ph.D. in Culture, Literacy, and Language from the University of Texas at San Antonio. She is the 2022 recipient of the AWLA "Friend of Languages" Award. Dr. Mahafza's passion for multicultural children's literature motivated her to write her first book "The Arabian Cinderella and the Secret of the Woven Threads." Her goal is to bridge the gap between cultures by using the means of culturally responsive teaching. In her spare time, she enjoys gardening with her husband, and cooking multicultural foods from around the world. Her favorite pets are rabbits; she never gets bored of talking about them.