''Cinderella, or the Little Glass Slipper'' is a book adapted and illustrated by

Marcia Brown Marcia Joan Brown (July 13, 1918 – April 28, 2015) was an American writer and illustrator of more than 30 children's books. She has won three annual Caldecott Medals from the American Library Association, and three Caldecott Medal honors as an ...

. Released by

Charles Scribner's Sons Charles Scribner's Sons, or simply Scribner's or Scribner, is an American publisher based in New York City, known for publishing American authors including Henry James, Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Kurt Vonnegut, Marjorie Kinnan Rawli ...

, the book is a retelling of the story of

Cinderella "Cinderella",; french: link=no, Cendrillon; german: link=no, Aschenputtel) or "The Little Glass Slipper", is a folk tale with thousands of variants throughout the world.Dundes, Alan. Cinderella, a Casebook. Madison, Wis: University of Wisconsi ...

as written by

Charles Perrault Charles Perrault ( , also , ; 12 January 1628 – 16 May 1703) was an iconic French author and member of the Académie Française. He laid the foundations for a new literary genre, the fairy tale, with his works derived from earlier folk tales ...

, and was the recipient of the

Caldecott Medal The Randolph Caldecott Medal, frequently shortened to just the Caldecott, annually recognizes the preceding year's "most distinguished American picture book for children". It is awarded to the illustrator by the Association for Library Service ...

for

illustration An illustration is a decoration, interpretation or visual explanation of a text, concept or process, designed for integration in print and digital published media, such as posters, flyers, magazines, books, teaching materials, animations, vid ...

in 1955. American Library Association
Caldecott Medal Winners, 1938 - Present
URL accessed 27 May 2009. The book takes place in

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

, in a palace similar to other Cinderella stories.

Plot

A widower marries a haughty woman with two daughters of her own. Both the woman and the two daughters hate the man's daughter called

. Cinderella is very gentle and beautiful. However, her stepmother and sisters treat her cruelly. Cinderella is always assigned to do all the chores around the house and also sleeps in the attic. One day, it is announced that the prince is having a royal ball and invites all the ladies of quality to the ball. Cinderella wants to go to the ball but she can't because she is forced to stay home and clean the whole house. Cinderella starts crying as her stepsisters go to the ball. Her fairy godmother appears out of nowhere and asks, "Why are you crying?" Cinderella explains why she is upset. After Cinderella explains everything, her fairy godmother uses her magic power to help Cinderella. The fairy godmother transforms all the mice, lizards, and rats into horses and coachmen for the golden coach. She gives Cinderella a gown made of gold and silver and slippers made of glass. The only thing her fairy godmother asks is for Cinderella to get home by midnight when the magic will end. Entering the ball, Cinderella goes unrecognized by her stepsisters and dazzles everyone there, especially the prince. The prince pays her special attention because he has never seen her before. As Cinderella dances with the prince, she loses track of time and must leave the ball. Fleeing away from the ball and the prince, one of her glass slippers falls. The prince tries to keep up with her but he can't, so he picks up the glass slipper and vows to find her and marry the one that fits the glass slipper. As soon as Cinderella gets home, her gown turns back to rags, the horse and the coachmen turn back to animals, but the glass slipper remains as is. The next morning, the stepsisters tell her that the prince is in love with some unknown lady that was at the ball last night. Also, that the prince is going house to house to see who fits the glass slipper, and whoever fits, he will marry. As the prince arrives the stepsisters try to fit their feet into the glass slipper but it is an unsuccessful attempt. Cinderella tries the slipper and it is a perfect fit. A few days later, the prince marries the girl who fits the glass slipper as promised. Cinderella forgives her stepsisters for their past cruelty.

Theme

Morality and grace are primary themes and are shown through the main character's (Cinderella) ability to achieve success through perseverance and positive behavior when faced with negative circumstances.

Reception

Kirkus Reviews ''Kirkus Reviews'' (or ''Kirkus Media'') is an American book review magazine founded in 1933 by Virginia Kirkus (1893–1980). The magazine is headquartered in New York City. ''Kirkus Reviews'' confers the annual Kirkus Prize to authors of fic ...

praised ''Cinderella'' as having "the smoothness of a good translation and a unique charm to her (Brown's) feathery light pictures." and concluded that it was "Gentle."

References

External links

''Cinderella, or The Little Glass Slipper'' by Charles Perrault
– Text from ''

The Blue Fairy Book ''The Langs' Fairy Books'' are a series of 25 collections of true and fictional stories for children published between 1889 and 1913 by Andrew Lang and his wife, Leonora Blanche Alleyne. The best known books of the series are the 12 collectio ...

''
''Cinderella'' illustrated by Marcia Brown
at the

Open Library Open Library is an online project intended to create "one web page for every book ever published". Created by Aaron Swartz, Brewster Kahle, Alexis Rossi, Anand Chitipothu, and Rebecca Malamud, Open Library is a project of the Internet Archive, ...

{{Caldecott Medal 1954 children's books American picture books Caldecott Medal–winning works Picture books based on fairy tales Works based on Cinderella Adaptations of works by Charles Perrault