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| Chronicle Books LLC |
Deborah Underwood
Meg Hunt
2015
The Summary
"Once upon a planetoid,
amid her tools and sprockets,
a girl named Cindrella dreamed
of fixing fancy rockets.
"With a little help from her fairy godrobot, Cinderella is going to the ball. But when the prince's ship has mechanical trouble, someone will have to zoom to the rescue! Readers will thank their lucky stars for this irrepressible fairy tale retelling, it's independent heroine, and its stellar happy ending."
The Good
I absolutely loved Interstellar Cinderella. I happened across it one day at the library and I decided to read it before I returned it to the Children's Library, and I immediately fell in love with this little book. It was so fun, so warm and colorful, so wonderfully depicted that I couldn't help enjoying it.
The art is lovely and bright, and the story is fun and heart-warming. Meg Hunt does a fantastic job of envisioning the mechanical creations of Cinderella's world; Deborah Underwood recreates Cinderella as a smart, saavy, intrepid young girl, not to mention she gives Cinderella the agency to become what she's always wanted to be: a rocket mechanic.
I think that's what I loved best about Interstellar Cinderella: Cinderella isn't rescued by the prince; in fact, when he asks her to marry him, she turns him down. That's right, Cinderella doesn't want to be married! She's too young, she decides, and she has dreams of her own that she wants to make come true; instead, Cinderella offers to become his chief mechanic.
Interstellar Cinderella has two very important things going for it: one, it creates an intelligent heroine who learns how to rescue herself; two, it makes it okay for a girl to focus on her dreams and aspirations of a career, rather than allow the expectations of other people dictate her life.
Yes, I know I got a lot more out of this children's book than I was probably supposed to find. Yes, I know it's just a story. But I found it heartwarming and, confidentially, inspiring. It has a heroine who doesn't just dream, she tries to make her dreams come true. She doesn't need anyone to rescue her, rather she can save herself.
And I like knowing there's that kind of heroine out there for the next girl to discover.
The Bad
I sometimes struggled with the rhyming scheme of the story, but, otherwise, no complaints.
The Ugly
There's nothing really terrible about Interstellar Cinderella. It's a children's book. Not to mention, it's basically Cinderella retold to include robots and space ships. Her stepsisters and stepmother are terrible, but, spoiler alert, she manages to escape them.
It's a cute, fun book for kids.
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