Cinderella Liberator (Fairytale Revolution)

I actually got this for myself technically but I also have babysat a lot in the past and plan to adopt/foster in the future. I don’t know what a child would think of it but I thought it was interesting and I feel like it’s mostly the same story with a few extra details. The characters feel more like real people and I like how it ended. The full meaning behind what happened to the evil stepmother at the end might be a bit beyond children that are really young but I thought it was introspective so maybe it could be nice for middle school age kids who are learning to look deeper into what they’re reading

Very nice book, the look of the pictures was beautiful. The theme of the book is finding your strengths, using your ambitions, being kind to others. Cinderella isn’t rescued but befriends the prince and they save themselves from situations they aren’t happy in by finding their passions and opening in their own businesses to find fulfillment. Has cute little pro-women things sprinkled in like “all dresses should have pockets”, and also more serious strong feminist messages. Definitely would recommend. Great for ages 3-12, but I think any age would enjoy it!

The themes are positive, and the ends well, but the variant contains a key flaw. The main couple is too young to marry, but the Cinderella is old enough to run a business.The mother is not really dead, but the father remains missing. The stepmother turns into wind . . . Parts of the plot are thoroughly explained. Others are left messy.The afterward shows Solnit needed to do more research. Cinderella’s kindness to animals is not something Solnit adds. It is from numerous older versions.Overall, it is not a bad retelling, but it is not amazing either.

I nearly cried the first 5 times I read this to my 4.5 year old. Rebecca Solnit is brilliant. The way she speaks at a child’s level without watering down the story is incredible. It’s one of the handful of times I’ve read a book (and the first its been a children’s book) and thought, “Oh my god, I didn’t know one could write like this.” It changed my perception of what kids’ books can be. I took photos of my favorite pages and made my childless friends read them, ha! And now I plan to buy it for every young/new parent I know.

Cinderella Liberator is a fresh re-envisioning of the old fairy tale by one of our clearest progressive and feminist voices writing today, Rebecca Solnit. Gracefully illustrated with selections from Arthur Rackham's classic silhouettes, it retells the story for our time, with an emphasis on making and enabling free individual choices, on good will, economic justice, and finding one's right work, and on personal joy and growth being tightly bound to an ethics of care and responsibility. Solnit's afterword is worth reading closely. Give it to a child -- enjoy it yourself -- as a collector of illustrated and retold fairy tales, this gets a prize spot on my shelf!

There have been failed attempts to "update" classic fairy tales, often to make them less violent, less demeaning of women and girls, less prone to stereotyping of bad guys, and so on. They fail because they are lousy literature. Not this one! The writing is fluid and lovely, the psychological insight (an important feature of fairy tales) is profound, and the revisions to more familiar versions are witty and wise. Spoiler alert: there is no "happily ever after." This is the BEST version of Cinderella since ever. A joy to read at any age!

Excellent retelling by a fantastic author!

I am Grandma-aged and I have to admit I’m of two minds about “Cinderella Liberator”. On one hand, it is a fun book, and fun to read out loud. On the other hand, half of the fun of “Cinderella Liberator” is comparing it to the traditional Cinderella story, so you have to know the original version. Or at least the Disney-esque version. The original Grimm Brothers version has the stepmother and stepsisters tortured at the end.“Cinderella Liberator” has really lovely illustrations. They are shadow versions of the original Rackham drawings. (Rackham is best known for his illustrations of the original “Alices’ Adventures in Wonderland.”)The writing is above average for a fairy-tale. One of my favorite quotes is the description of Cinderella’s ball gown, “They call some dresses evening gowns, but this dress really was one, with clouds and the first stars coming out and a crescent moon somewhere in there, and a few birds flying across the hem, black and shaped like the letter W, in all the blue.”I do like the idea of upgrading traditional fairy tales - enough with damsels who cannot help themselves already. But the truth is, sometimes we do need help, and sometimes it is serendipitous (magical even).So this is a fun book, a worthy present.Happy Reader