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Cinderella
by David Delamare
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Living happily with her mother and father, Cinderella finds her life beginning to unravel with the death of her mother and her father's remarriage, in a beautifully illustrated retelling of the traditional tale set against the romantic backdrop of Venice.

In her haste to flee the palace before her fairy-mother's magic loses effect, Cinderella leaves behind a glass slipper in this version of the traditional fairy tale set in a city of canals and gondolas

Information. SLJ Reviews 1993 December (SLL3)

Gr 2-5-Longer and for a slightly older audience than most picture-book versions, this Cinderella is enriched by its unusual setting (a city of canals evocative of Venice); strong characters; and sophisticated, striking illustrations. The story begins with Ella's life before her mother's death and her father's remarriage. Her subsequent fall is thus more poignant, and her gentle but melancholy goodness more believable. Once the stepmother and sisters are introduced, the story unfolds along traditional lines. Cinderella's ``fairy-mother'' sends her to the Grand Duke's ball, with a pumpkin and a fish becoming a magnificent gondola rather than a carriage. Her lost glass slipper shatters ``into a thousand pieces'' as one of the stepsisters struggles to shove her ``potato foot'' into it. Delamare matches his creative text with startling, eye-catching illustrations. The scenes are full of activity and realistic detail, rendered in a palette of clear, rich colors. The unusual perspectives and dynamic compositions lend a fantastic quality that suits the fairy tale nicely. This Cinderella is both elegant and exciting, and while not an essential purchase, it is well worth the price wherever illustrated versions of old tales are in demand.-Linda Boyles, Alachua County Library District, Gainesville, FL Copyright 1993 Cahners Business

Information. PW Reviews 1993 September #2 (PI23)

An elaborately detailed Venetian venue serves as backdrop for this rarefied retelling of the traditional fairy tale. Ella's mother is still alive as the story opens, the wife of a wealthy sea merchant who rarely sees his family. When, from afar, Ella falls in love with lonely-looking Duke Fidelio, she confides in her mother, wondering sadly ``if his father is as busy as mine.'' Her mother dies and Ella is sent off to ``boarding school,'' from whence she is summoned to become housekeeper for her father's new bride and her daughters. Despite such plot enhancements, the distinguishing element here is Delamare's ( The Christmas Secret ) arresting artwork. His paintings feature sharply defined images carefully juxtaposed so as to resemble collage. Ornately dressed and elegantly coiffed figures traipse about in palatial splendor, suffused in an amber wash. Ella's Julia Roberts-like sultriness contrasts starkly, perhaps awkwardly, with Delamare's oddly planed courtiers. Slightly skewed proportions, ominous perspectives and hallucinatory settings (Ella rides a fish-shaped gondola with a pumpkin-shaped cabin) impart a vaguely menacing quality to the work. Best suited to diehard Cinderella devotees and fans of Delamare's highly stylized art. Ages 4-8. (Sept.) Copyright 1993 Cahners Business