I was absolutely obsessed with John Patience’s Rainbow’s End series when I was a kid (honestly, I still am), so I figured that I would check out some of his retold fairytales as well. While we obviously can’t compare the retellings to his original work (to give them a fair chance), this version of Cinderella was pretty decent. The narrative had no surprises and didn’t do much to engage the reader past a basic level, but I really enjoyed what he did with the illustrations. The story is set historically, so we get the expected castles and ball gowns as decoration, but what takes Patience’s illustrations to the next level is his application of marbling and fabric patterning into the dress forms and backgrounds. This unexpected combination of traditional illustration techniques with seamless collage provides the reader with a lot more visual stimulation than expected and makes the story stand out in comparison to the bevy of other adaptations out there. There’s a few more of Patience’s classic fairytale retellings out there, so now I just have to find them! ( )

Cinderella has always been a favorite story of mine. While I do prefer other fairy tales to Cinderella, it is a classic story that everyone knows. What is so interesting about Cinderella is that it has been remade so many times, yet the moral is still the same. In this version, Cinderella is set true to the time period. It starts right when the messenger comes to tell the people about the ball. The sisters go off, and Cinderella meets her fairy god mother. This story talks about rats and mice and lizards being the horses and coachmen and escorts. Cinderella goes to the balls, dances with the prince and looses her shoe as she is leaving. The prince holds a village wide search for the girl who lost her shoe. When the shoe fit Cinderella, her godmother showed up and gave her a tap with the wand and she was off to the palace, where she and the prince were married. This is very true to all other classic Cinderella stories. The theme is perseverance. Cinderella endured hardships her entire life, but she never gave up, and eventually, all her dreams came true. ( )