Cinderella translated and illustrated by Marcia Brown, 1954.

This is a retelling of the classic Cinderella story, translated from the French Perrault version by Marcia Brown, the author and illustrator of many other classic fairy tales and folktales for children.

As in the classic story, Cinderella is a girl with a cruel stepmother and a pair of spoiled stepsisters, who force her to do all of the work of the house and make her wear rags. Her father never stands up for her because he is too attached to his second wife to oppose her.

When it is announced that the king’s son is holding a ball and that the stepsisters are invited, they hurry to get ready, and they make Cinderella help them. Of course, nobody thinks that Cinderella should go to the ball, and the stepsisters laugh and tease her about it.

When they head off to the ball, Cinderella watches them go and cries. Then, her fairy godmother appears and tells her that she is going to help her. The fairy godmother turns a pumpkin into a fine coach, mice into horses, and a rat into a coachman. She gives Cinderella a beautiful dress to wear and a lovely pair of glass slippers. However, she warns Cinderella not to stay at the ball past midnight, when her magic spells will end, and everything will become what it was before.

At the ball, Cinderella charms the prince and has a wonderful time. She is even nice to her stepsisters when she encounters them. They don’t recognize her in her new finery. Everyone keeps wondering who the girl who appears to be a beautiful princess could be. Shortly before midnight, she leaves the ball abruptly and returns home before her stepsisters do. She tells her godmother everything that happened and that the prince invited her to a ball to be held on the next night.

The next ball is also wonderful, but Cinderella loses track of the time and runs away suddenly when the clock begins to strike midnight. In her haste to get away, she accidentally leaves one of her glass slippers behind. The prince finds it and decides to use it to find this beautiful, mysterious girl he has already come to love.

Many young ladies try on the shoe, including Cinderella’s stepsisters, hoping that it will fit them. However, it will only fit Cinderella, and only Cinderella has the other slipper in the pair.

This is a Caldecott Medal Book. It’s available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive.

My Reaction

The story follows the classic Perrault version of the Cinderella story. There are many variations of this fairy tale, but this one is often the best-known. In some versions of the story, Cinderella’s father is also dead, which is why she is left at the mercy of her stepmother and stepsisters, but in this one, he is still alive and is just unconcerned about Cinderella’s treatment. He is never shown in any of the pictures and plays no role in the story.

I enjoyed the illustrations in this book. They’re an unusual style. Objects and people in the pictures are only party defined by pen lines. Many of their edges are more softly defined by color.