CENDRILLON

San Souci’s retelling of the Cinderella story in a Martinique mode has music to it that cannot be denied. Cendrillon’s godmother, an island washerwoman, narrates; she is no fairy, but is in possession of a mahogany wand that may be deployed on someone she loves. She enables Cendrillon to make a grand entrance to the local ball (and plays chaperon) and catch the eye of the young gentleman who is as elegant as a prince. The infatuation is instant, dances are spun, the clock strikes twelve, a slipper is lost, Cendrillon is found, wedding bells chime. Much of the pleasure of this book is in the setting and the sense that this could happen anywhere, that magic transcends time and place. Pinkney’s scratchboard illustrations give the comic proportions a tangibility that leaps off the page—the laundry snaps, the coachmen jostle with the movement of the carriage, and the stepdaughter’s toes, are, indeed, sausages. (Picture book/folklore. 4-8)