CINDERLILY

Waving his digital wand, Ellwand poses balletic figures made from flower parts against black backgrounds for an uncommonly elegant, theatrical rendition of the fairy tale. Just an upended stem with slender, graceful lily stamens for limbs and a twist of dried petals for dress, Cinderlily arrives at the Sultan’s palace in a pumpkin coach with sunflower wheels; those petals open to dazzling white curls as she enters, and she leaves one behind when they revert at midnight. In the pared-down plot, the Sultan, quite dashing in his iris-petal pantaloons, quickly tracks Cinderlily down, upon which her stepsisters, instead of suffering just deserts, merely slip offstage. Written in stumbling meter and printed in a set of ornate typefaces, the text doesn’t measure up to the inventive art—but children will know how the story goes anyway. An eye-catcher. (Picture book/folktale. 7-9)