Customer Reviews

Cinderella

5 star:		(20)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Okay, I love fairy tales, but I bought this book because Kinuko Y Craft illustrated it. Craft's work is absolutely stunning, not to mention romantic and atmospheric. I buy any book which has a Craft cover (Patricia McKillip's are just wonderful).

But I have to say this, in all honesty, this book just took my breath away. The paintings are almost beyond words. Trust me. You have to see them to know Craft's genius, and as one reviewer wrote, never has Cinderella looked more beautiful, more enchanting, more magical. If I didn't know better, I would think Craft really is part fae. If you love fairy tales, this Cinderella is a must for your collection.

For adults, children, and all who love magic and fantasy.

The dedication in this book reads: "For All Dreamers." The illustrations are ethereal and lush, very similar to the Cinderella I imagined when I first heard the story in my childhood. Craft takes her readers back to a traditional setting where the gowns are elaborate and the colors are vibrant. Little girls will especially enjoy the illustrations as they dream of their own "princess" dresses.

Fans of Kinuko Y. Craft will adore this new book. Some of you may know her for her illustrations of other children's books such as "The Twelve Dancing Princesses." Others may know her as the cover artist of many of Patricia McKillip's beautiful books. However you may know her work, you will enjoy this new edition of Cinderella.

Another absolutely amazing book by K. Y. Craft. Here she brings us a "more genuine" retelling of the famous tale - far more rich in detail than the Disney production. The pictures are lush images from dreams, and the story is more detailed and enjoyable. If you are looking for an alternative to the Disney version (one in which the sisters are not physically violent with Cinderella) this is the one that will make a young girl's dreams soar. My 3 year old loved it when she got it for Christmas, and it is still a favorite. I also recommend "The Twelve Dancing Princesses" by K. Y. Craft as well, which is available in an affordable paperback that should not be missed.

Craft adds quite a bit to Charles Perrault's original terse version of this tale, including a scene with a wounded bird being tended by Cinderella. The bird is reminiscent of the Grimm brothers version, however, and serves a nice touch at the end. It is not the story which is so outstanding about this book, though. I was introduced to Craft's work through my college's poster fair, but nothing prepared me for the exquisite nature of her work in "Cinderella." This version embodies all the fantastic and beautiful elements which we want to see in a fairy tale like "Cinderella," but so often illustrators take an avant-garde approach, or seek to focus on Perrault's prose and ignore the chance to fully realize the story visually. However, we all know the story - we want to SEE it. Craft obliges by bringing the story to life luxuriantly and without holding back. She deserves a hand of applause.

What a magnificent depiction of this timeless tale. If it matters to you that your child know the beauty of words fitly put together and the loveliness of art then this is the Cinderella you want. The language is elegant and the paintings are exquisite. I couldn't stop looking at the paintings and relishing the detail and emotion. I am currently building my daughter's library and how glad I am that I didn't get Disney's Cinderella, for that is not the Cinderella I want her to know.

Kindness, humility and forgiveness constitutes a royal heart. Cinderella had the heart of a queen before she ever came into the presence of her king. That should make her a staple in any child's library.

I bought this book to read to my daughter until she is old enough to read on her own. I thought the story was intriguing, with multiple prince sightings and the illustrations were absolutely extraordinary. This book is a delight to look at, never mind read.

Given the popularity of Disney's cartoon Cinderella, there are surprisingly few excellent versions of the original fairy tale available, but if you can get your hands on this one you may have no desire to keep looking. Kinuko Craft's version surpasses other versions just as the resplendent Cinderella, in luscious gown and glass slippers, outshone the other women at the prince's ball. Craft's sumptuous paintings are similar to those of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century France, and fairy tale purists will be happy to note that her streamlined prose is adapted from Arthur Rackham's and Andrew Lang's versions of the classic story. In the story, a beautiful young woman is mistreated by her stepmother and stepsisters, but she is magically transported to the prince's ball with the help of her kindly fairy godmother. There her natural beauty (accentuated by the finery lavished on her by the fairy godmother) wins the prince's heart, and he scours the kingdom to find her -- his only clue the glass slipper she left behind in her hurry to be out of sight before the magic spell was broken.

Astonishingly, this book has not been published widely, but is available in public libraries and on the used book market.

I'll admit that there are so many versions of Cinderella that it must be difficult to devise a new and extra-special retelling. I believe this attempt by Craft is quite good - not great, perhaps - but still very good.

The illustrations, as always with Craft's work, are a feast for the eyes. Craft has an incredible eye for color and detail! The two-page spreads left me wanting even more.

The story is fairly detailed, though I felt more detail would have been even better. And while Craft gives a sense of a bygone age with her choice of words and her characters' speech, sometimes I found myself tripping over the words (and though I appreciate the eloquent words of the prince, they did feel a little too sappy at times).

I think, perhaps, I was hoping for too much from this retelling: I would have liked more on why Cinderella was so kind, and why she put up with her step-family, I would have liked more clarification of why her slippers did not disappear after the stroke of midnight, and certainly I would have liked a better resolution with the step-family than the one presented here.

That said, I thought the final page was sweet, the addition of the prince also falling for "the cinder girl" Cinderella a good one, and especially the twist about the bluebird (both in what the bluebird is, and how Craft used this to illustrate how kind Cinderella is).

Also, a point of note, this is a very G-rated version. No Grimm whatsoever in this retelling.

All in all a very enchanting read, but just know that it doesn't go too far beyond the basic tale.

This book is simply gorgeous! It's worth getting for the pictures alone. The detail is amazing, and the ball gowns are fabulous! But the story is wonderful, too. It's a little different from most versions of the Cinderella story. It has a gentle spirit to it, and is very satisfying. I've read dozens of versions of this story in my years home-schooling, and this is by far my favorite.

Gorgeous, warm, sensual illustrations. The illustration details keep my four-year-old daughter interested while I read to her. There's only one strange spot in the narrative that she doesn't really get, but the difficulty for me is just in reading the words themselves - my eyesight is going and the typeface seems small to me. (I also see this in Craft's Sleeping Beauty.) But any complaints are minor - the illustrations absolutely make up for them. Craft has a way of making a story seem epic - I just want to sink into the pages. And apparently so does my daughter.