Cinderella (Fairy Tales)
Reviewed with Madame D'Aulnoy's Beauty and the Beast.Gr. 9-12. High-school art students are the likely audience for these handsome new picture-book editions. The mostly straightforward text veers into the archaic and convoluted in parts: "Cinderella, would you not be glad to go to the ball?" ask the stepsisters. "You only jeer me; it is not for such as I am to go thither," she replies. It is both volumes' artwork that is noteworthy. Roberto Innocenti setsCinderellain the 1920s, illustrating the clothes, cars, households, and boozy decadence of the era in intricate spreads. High-school students readingTheGreat Gatsby or looking for visual representations of the flapper era will pore over these pages. Etienne Delessert'sBeautytakes a more symbolic approach. A fairly representational blond Beauty and Georgia O'Keefe-like flowers blend with startling compositions of abstracted claws and toothy snouts representing the beast. For older design students, both titles offer intriguing examples of how such familiar material can be visually reinterpreted.Gillian EngbergCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved