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Illustrated by David Catrow
Harcourt, 2000
$16.00 hardcover
32 pages

Here is Cinderella as you've never before imagined her! The story is mostly as you've always known it, but the fun is in the details. Because Cinderella and all the rest are skeletons!

Allow me to introduce her:

"Cinderella Skeleton
Was everything a ghoul should be:
Her build was long and lean and lank;
Her dankish hair hung down in hanks;
Her nails were yellow; her teeth were green --
The ghastliest haunt you've ever seen.
Foulest in the land was she."

Robert D. San Souci and David Catrow don't miss a trick with this perversely appealing picture book.

San Souci's rhyming tale has an odd rhythm, a little awkward to read aloud, but neither rhyme nor meter ever distorts his choice of words or interferes with his story. He has several gruesomely funny twists throughout, such as Cinderella Skeleton losing not just a shoe but her entire foot, or the backward notion of her chores being to keep the house dirty.

(With attention occasionally placed on "empowered" versus "helpless" Cinderellas, it is worth pointing out that while Cinderella Skeleton doesn't provide her own ballgown or transportation, she does know when and where to go for help -- there is a good witch in the wood nearby who is willing to "cast kind spells.")

But it is David Catrow's illustrations that steal the book. The sheer absurdity of his prancing skeletons is delightful; their skulls -- faces? -- are far more expressive than skulls have any right to be. (Step-mother Skreech's lipstick outlines and stains her bared teeth for a particularly macabre effect.)

Cinderella Skeleton is definitely a tricky treat to add to your Halloween reading this year.

Artist David Catrow has created even more ghoulish pictures for a special Cinderella Skeleton web page. Have a look!

Dustjacket art by David Catrow; image used courtesy of Harcourt, Inc.

Reviewed by Wendy Morris. © 2001 by Wendy Morris

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