Smoky Mountain Rose

An Appalachian Cinderella

By: Alan Schroeder

Fairy Tale
(Traditional or Folk Literature)



Smoky Mountain Rose is a book about a girl named Rose whose father is a trapper.  Rose's father gets married again to a mean lady with two daughters.  When Rose's father dies, her step-sisters make her do all the work on the farm.  A rich fellow, Seb, has a party and invites all the girls in the Smoky Mountains.  The step-mother makes Rose stay home with the hogs.  Then one hog starts talking to Rose.  The hog transforms many things outside into everything that Rose needs to go to the party.  At the party Rose and Seb dance the night away, until Rose runs out leaving one slipper behind.  Seb searchers for the girl who lost her slipper at his party, he finds Rose and they live happily ever after in the Smoky Mountains.

After reading this version of Cinderella to my class I could do a few activities with it.  First of all this fairy tale is a North Carolina version, set in the Appalachian Mountains.  After reading this book you could show the students where the Appalachian Mountains are on a map, which could help begin to meet standard 1.01 in 4th grade social studies: locate, in absolute and relative terms, major landforms, bodies of water and natural resources in North Carolina.  However, you could also read this version of Cinderella along with the original version and have the students complete a Venn diagram comparing and contrasting the two versions of the fairy tale.