ESTRELLITA DE ORO / LITTLE GOLD STAR: A CINDERELLA CUENTO.retold in Spanish & English.BILINGUAL MIDDLE READER

Joe Hayes tells one of the world's favorite folktales in Spanish and English. The Cinderella story is common to cultures the world over. Spanish settlers brought the tale to the New World centuries ago, and through many tellings it evolved into LITTLE GOLD STAR. Like every Cinderella tale, LITTLE GOLD STAR is a wonderful celebration of the human spirit. As always, the kind heroine triumphs over her envious stepmother and stepsisters. But in this humorous version the teller weaves the enchanting elements of the story to show us how the inner qualities of the characters are revealed in their appearance. Each girl has an encounter with a magical hawk. When the heroine is kind to the bird, she receives a gold star on her forehead; but when her spiteful sisters go in search of their own gold stars, one is rewarded with a donkey's ear and the other gets a cow's horn. You can just imagine how a prince would feel about asking those two stepsisters to be his bride!

Joe Hayes is one of Americas premier storytellersa nationally recognized teller of tales from the Hispanic, Native American and Anglo cultures. His bilingual Spanish-English tellings have earned him a distinctive place among Americas storytellers.

Joe grew up in a small town in southern Arizona. His schoolmates and friends, many of whom were Mexican-American, taught him how to speak Spanish. As Joe got older, he began reading the work of folklorists and anthropologists and gathering the old stories from the region that he calls homethe Southwestern United States. When his own children were young, Joe enjoyed telling them stories. He decided that this would be the way he would earn a living. He also decided to use both Spanish and English when telling his stories to children so that they could learn and love both languages, just like he did when he was a child.Joes tales are a combination of the traditional lore of the American Southwest and his own imagination. The traditional part is based on things people have told him and on what he has learned from reading the work of folklorists and anthropologists. Joes own contribution is based on his instincts as a storyteller and what his experience tells him listeners need ! in order to feel satisfied with a story.

Joe Hayes is the resident storyteller at the Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian in Santa Fe. He has been featured at the National Storytelling Festival in Jonesboro, Tennessee.