CINDERELLA

The author-illustrator of The Golden Mare, the Firebird, and the Magic Ring (2001) works her particular beguilement over Cinderella, using the Perrault story with elements from the Grimms. When Cinderella’s nasty stepsisters request expensive gifts from their father, Cinderella asks only for a twig, which she plants next to her mother’s favorite rose bush. A hazel tree grows and a white bird with a beautiful song inhabits it, easing Cinderella’s loneliness. When the prince announces the ball, and Cinderella begs to go, her stepmother flings a bowl of lentils into the fireplace and says she can go if she can pick up every lentil in two hours. It is the birds who come to help Cinderella in this task, but of course, the stepmother refuses anyway. Later, the white bird is gone, but a white-winged fairy godmother under the hazel tree transforms Cinderella into a golden-gowned princess. Although the stepsisters beg for and receive Cinderella’s forgiveness in the end, the birds do not permit them to leave their old house, but keep them imprisoned there while Cinderella and her prince live happily ever after. Eighteenth-century gowns and furnishings adorn this story, and Sanderson makes use of a silvery swath of fairy light to entwine Cinderella’s gown and the enchanted coach. A Cinderella for Sanderson fans. (Picture book/fairy tale. 5-8)