Deborah Hopkinson

“A fair­ly stan­dard retelling changes course quick­ly when Cin­derel­la storms out of the ball (“What a dis­as­ter!”) declar­ing that the prince is a snob and her feet are killing her (“Seri­ous­ly? Glass high heels?”). As her horse turns back into a mouse and the pump­kin coach cracks open on the road, “Ella” blithe­ly kneels on the ground, picks out the seeds, and pock­ets them. “I’ll find my own des­tiny, thank you very much”–and she does, with mouse pal Fred wit­ness to it all. Zelin­sky’s humor­ous illus­tra­tions have fun with Cin­derel­la’s clown-like step­fam­i­ly and their ridicu­lous attempts to squeeze large feet into the tiny glass slip­per. Ella, on the oth­er hand, is depict­ed as a down-to-earth pump­kin farmer who soon finds true love with anoth­er like-mind­ed farmer. The two women (yaaas!) mar­ry and move to a small farm, where they grow spec­tac­u­lar pump­kins, in a tru­ly sat­is­fy­ing fairy-tale end­ing. Hop­kin­son’s enhanced retelling even adds a small pourquoi tale: “And that, dear read­ers, is the sto­ry of how fairy­tale pump­kins got their name.” Sor­ry, Prince Charm­ing, this revi­sion­ist tale ends quite hap­pi­ly with­out you.” (The Horn Book)