Read the fairy tale Anna loves
Cinderella
The story of a kind girl, a lost slipper, and a single night that changed everything — one of the most retold tales in the world, in the form first written down in France.
Once, in a house that should have been happy, there lived a girl who spent her days by the fireplace, sweeping ash from the hearth. Her mother had died when she was young, and her father had remarried a woman with two daughters of her own — daughters who were given fine rooms and soft beds, while the girl slept on a straw mat near the cinders. It was for this that they called her Cinderella.
She never complained. She mended her stepsisters’ dresses, styled their hair, and bore their unkindness quietly, because that was simply how her days were.
An invitation to the palace
One morning, word came that the King’s son was holding a ball, and every young woman in the land was invited. Cinderella’s stepsisters spent days choosing gowns and ribbons, ordering her about with fittings and errands, never once considering that she might want to go herself. On the night of the ball, she watched their carriage disappear down the road, and sat alone by the fire, crying quietly — not out of self-pity, but because for one evening, she had wanted to belong somewhere too.
A fairy godmother
It was then that her fairy godmother appeared, and with a wave of her wand turned a pumpkin into a carriage, mice into horses, and Cinderella’s ragged dress into a gown of silver and gold, with a pair of glass slippers to match. But there was a condition: the magic would end at the stroke of midnight, and not a moment later.
At the ball, no one recognized the girl who arrived alone. The Prince danced with her all night, enchanted, and asked no one’s name but hers. Cinderella, careful of the hour, kept watching the clock — and when midnight began to toll, she ran, leaving the Prince calling after her, and one glass slipper behind on the palace steps.
The slipper that fit
The Prince searched the kingdom, having every young woman try on the slipper left behind, determined to find the girl it belonged to. When his men reached Cinderella’s house, her stepsisters tried and failed, their feet too large. Almost as an afterthought, someone asked if there wasn’t another girl in the house — and Cinderella, ash still on her hands, stepped forward.
The slipper fit perfectly. And when she reached into her apron and produced the matching slipper, there was no more doubt about who she was. She married the Prince, and — in the most generous ending a story like this can offer — forgave her stepsisters completely, welcoming them into her new life at the palace instead of shutting them out.
Breton Lullaby
Play this softly while you read Cinderella aloud — a traditional handplayed lullaby from Brittany, in the west of France.
More stories, more lullabies
This is one tale in a growing collection of traditional stories from around the world — each one paired, where we can, with a real lullaby from the same culture.