A fresh take on Cinderella that reimagines many aspects of the classic tale, including the gender of the person Cinderella falls in love with.
The story is told from the perspective of Fred, a gray mouse with itchy ears who lives in Cinderella’s (“Ella’s”) pumpkin patch. One night, a stranger appears—Ella’s grouchy fairy godmother. The crotchety fairy turns Ella’s prize pumpkin into a carriage and Fred into a horse, then sets Ella off to the ball, despite Ella’s discomfort in glass high heels.
Fred waits outside, imagining the cheese platters within, until Ella comes storming out of the palace. She’s lost a glass slipper (and breaks the other against a lamppost), and fed up with the snooty prince. Fred speeds home with Ella just before the clock strikes 12 and both he and the pumpkin resume their true forms.
The next day, the prince comes by looking for the owner of the remaining slipper. Ella’s stepsisters try it on, but to no avail. And then—the prince drives off. “I’ll find my own destiny, thank you very much,” asserts Ella.
Indeed she does, growing a giant pumpkin that takes first place at the fair and marrying the farmer whose pumpkin came in second—a woman “who fell madly in love with Ella, just as she was. And Ella loved her right back.” They married and moved to a farm where they grew pumpkins, watched over by Fred. “It was a fairy-tale ending after all,” we read, and then learn that that is how fairytale pumpkins got their name. An “About Fairytale Pumpkins” note at the end explains a little more about the many colors and varieties of pumpkins, and how they may have inspired depictions in various retellings of Cinderella over the centuries.
This is a delightful tale told with verve by Deborah Hopkinson and illustrated in dynamic, entertaining fashion by the Caldecott Award-winning Paul O. Zelinsky. The one thing I don’t like is that the stepmother and stepsisters are still portrayed as “wicked.” Stepfamilies deserve better than this, and always have (including the many queer ones). I don’t really blame Hopkinson for keeping a few aspects of the original story—but I hope a future retelling rethinks this part of the tale, too! Nevertheless, young readers will appreciate Ella’s agency and confidence and Fred’s adorable, steady companionship.
Cinderella, stepsisters, and prince are all White, but her beloved could be read as a light-skinned person of color, and other characters in the town show skin-tone diversity.
