Monday, July 21, 2008

Cinderella by Barbara Ensor

The full title of this book is: Cinderella (as if you didn't already know the story). I thought this sounded like it might be fun. Maybe a retelling of the story or a modernized version (ala Ella Enchanted or something). I was quite disappointed. It really is just a retelling of the story with nothing much changed. It has several illustrations in black that reminded me of Rorschach tests. The only thing a little different was that Cinderella would write letters to her mother telling her about what was happening, even though, obviously her mother would never see the letters. I guess it was a cathartic thing for her to do.

The last chapter made it a bit unique because Ensor tacked on a "where are they now?" section after the "happily ever after". There is also one page at the very end that describes how the story differs when told in other countries. That was sort of interesting. This book was definitely a disappointment unless you're simply looking for a Cinderella story like you've always heard before. Don't even bother with it.

1 comment:

allisonmariecat said...

Thank you for the review--I'll skip this one. Side note--I loved Ella Enchanted!