Review: Brilliant!
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 01 17, 2014
Cinderella is one of the most often-told stories ever, and here's a book that sets out to prove it.  We all know the Disney version, of course, but this book gives us versions from every culture, every corner of the world.  Not only are the stories consistently entertaining, there's plenty of variation to make them all worth reading.  It should have a lot of appeal to kids from different cultures, and that's just one of the things that makes this book special.  One of the most egregious things about Disney versions of just about any story is the blandness, the sameness, the WASP-iness of it all.  But this book reminds us that these stories -- and all stories -- are for people of different colors, who speak different languages.  That's the way the world is, and this book is a potent reminder that it's the way children should learn to see the world -- a world of diversity, not of sameness.  It could inspire some future lovers of historical fiction, always a good thing!  Furthermore, the book probably belongs on the shelf of every writer as pure research material -- big praise to Damian Stevenson for making it happen!  Great illustrations too.