Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine

That fool of a fairy Lucinda did not intend to lay a curse on me.

And so begins this retelling of the tale of Cinderella. Ella was blessed at birth by a fairy with the gift of obedience - imagine having to obey everyone! Ella does what she can to rebel and delay following orders but in the end she must. After her mother passes away, her father remarries the evil stepmother and terrible stepsisters we are all familiar. Ella does not sit by passively accepting her fate. She searches for the fairy to end her curse, torments her stepsisters right back and falls in love with her prince. Like all good fairy tales, it is only when Ella realizes her own strength found within that everything ends happily ever after. The glass slippers, pumpkin coach and fairy godmother are all found here just as in the original Cinderella. Ella and the prince first become friends and then fall in love. A nice change of pace over the 'their eyes meet, fall in love and live happily ever after' love story.

I thought the author did a great job demonstrating Ella as a strong, feisty girl.

Levine, G. C. (1997). Ella enchanted. New York, NY: Harper Collins Publishers.
ISBN:0060275103

The Tarot Cafe Volume 1 by Sang-Sun Park

It's not difficult to guess what happened to my clients in the past.

Four stories that begin with a Tarot card reading to try to solve a problem.

I am both amazed and disturbed at the images. All the characters look female and somehow that seems wrong. However, the artwork is wonderful! The stories are interesting and capture my attention but too short for my taste.

Park, S. (2005). The tarot cafe volume 1. London, UK: TokyoPop, Inc.
ISBN: 1595325557
184 pages

The Sleeping Beauty by Trina Schart Hyman

A retelling of the Brother's Grimm tale accompanied by beautiful illustrations. An angry fairy places a spell on a princess so that on her fifteenth birthdays she will fall asleep for 100 years. As the princess sleeps, so does the other staff and family in the castle and briars grow over the castle. A prince wakes her with a kiss after 100 years and the other castle inhabitants awake and everyone lives happily ever after.

A fairy tale retold from the Brothers Grimm folktale of the same with fine-print source notes on the title page. The narrative style, like the original folktale, does not rely on rhyming or cadence but pulls the reader in with descriptions and short sentences. The detailed illustrations are a work of art and bring an originality to a well-known fairy tale.

Hyman, T.S. (1977). The sleeping beauty. Boston, MA: Little, Brown and Company.
ISBN: 031638702
Illustrated by the author