book report about cinderella

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Translated by Anthea Bell, this Perrault's classic tale is still timeless today. Sweet, beautiful Cinderella, cruelly mistreated by her evil stepmother and stepsisters, is helped by her magical fairy godmother, who turns Cinderella's rags into a sumptuous ball gown and sends her off to win the heart of a handsome prince.

Cinderella by Charles Perrault

• Publication Date: April 1, 2002
• Genres: Classics , Fairy Tale , Fiction
• Paperback: 32 pages
• Publisher: North-South Books
• ISBN-10: 0735814864
• ISBN-13: 9780735814868

Fiction | Short Story | Middle Grade | Published in 1812

Plot Summary

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A Summary and Analysis of the Cinderella Fairy Tale

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

‘Cinderella’ is, of course, a classic fairy story, a ‘rags to riches’ tale about a kind-hearted girl who suffers various hardships only to marry the prince of the kingdom. Why is Cinderella called Cinderella? Since she is shunned by the rest of her family (especially the stepsisters), the poor girl sits among the ashes in the chimney corner – hence her cindery name.

The ‘rags to riches’ transformation comes about when Cinders, who wishes to attend the royal ball, has her wish granted and subsequently meets the prince. Although she has to flee the ball and return home – losing one of her slippers in the process – the prince searches for and finds her, thanks to what is perhaps the most romantic shoe-fitting in all of literature. So far, so familiar.

The earliest appearance of the Cinderella story in print was in 1634 in the  Pentamerone , a collection of oral folk tales compiled by Giambattista Basile, a Neapolitan soldier, poet, and courtier. Here Cinderella is called Cenerentola.

In 1697, French writer Charles Perrault published the story of Cendrillon, a variation on the story. Perrault added several details now intrinsically associated with the story – notably the pumpkin, the fairy godmother, and the glass slipper – to Basile’s version, which already featured the wicked stepmother and the evil stepsisters, as well as the prince figure (though in Basile’s he is a king rather than a prince) who hunts for the owner of a slipper (though it isn’t glass in Basile’s version). Perrault’s version would form the basis of the hit 1950 Disney film  Cinderella , which in turn inspired Kenneth Branagh’s 2015 live-action remake.

But in fact the story is even older than these seventeenth-century versions: ‘Ye Xian’ or ‘Yeh-Shen’ is a Chinese variant of the Cinderella story that dates from the ninth century. A detailed plot summary can be found here .

But even this isn’t the oldest version of the story: a tale dating back to the 1st century BC, more than a thousand years before even the Chinese ‘Ye Xian’, is perhaps the earliest of all Cinderella narratives. The story is about a Thracian courtesan, Rhodopis, who ends up marrying the King of Egypt . It even features a royal figure searching for the owner of a shoe, suggesting that it is the progenitor of all later Cinderella stories.

In the nineteenth century, the Brothers Grimm offered a slightly different version of the tale in Aschenputtel . The Grimms’ retelling of the fairy tale is somewhat … well, grimmer than the Basile or Perrault versions.

At the end of the Grimms’ version of the story, the stepsisters’ eyes are pecked out by birds to punish the sisters for their cruelty towards their sibling – a violent conclusion you won’t find in Disney. In order to try to dupe the prince into thinking they are the wearers of the missing slipper, each of the stepsisters cuts off part of her own foot to make it fit, but the blood that fills the slipper gives the game away. Indeed, the Chinese ‘Ye Xian’ telling of the Cinderella story ends with the stepmother and ugly sisters being crushed to death in their caves by stones. In the Disney film they get off lightly, to say the least.

What’s more, in the Brothers Grimm version of the Cinderella story, the slipper is not glass, but gold. There is disagreement among scholars and commentators as to whether the glass slippers that first appear in Perrault’s version (and, subsequently, in many famous retellings and adaptations of the tale) were the result of Perrault’s mishearing  vair  (French for ‘squirrel’s fur’) for  verre (French for ‘glass’).

The majority of experts reject such a theory. The website Snopes.com states that Perrault intended the slippers to be made of glass all along, and wasn’t acting on an error, while another site suggests that the glass slipper was perhaps ‘an ironic device since it is a fragile thing’, so might be seen as a form of artistic licence.

Interestingly, the ‘error’ theory – that Perrault was not inventing an iconic literary trope but simply mishearing one word for another – appears to have been put about by the French novelist Honoré de Balzac. So, although Perrault added the glass slippers, it was most likely not down to a mishearing (especially since the word  vair was not in common use when Perrault was writing) but to creative licence.

Roald Dahl updated the fairy tale of Cinderella in 1982 in his R evolting Rhymes. The most significant Dahlian detail in his verse retelling of the tale comes near the end, when one of the stepsisters replaces the glass slipper with her own shoe. But even though the shoe subsequently fits the sister’s foot perfectly (as you’d expect), the prince declines to marry her and instead – cuts her head off.

The tyrannical prince does the same to the other stepsister, and Cinderella’s head would have been done for too, had her fairy godmother not intervened and saved her – granting Cinderella’s wish to be married to an ordinary husband rather than a prince who would, let’s face it, make Prince Joffrey look like Oliver Twist.

So that’s a happy ending, just not the one you find in traditional fairy tales.

Before the Disney film of 1950, and long before the 2015 Kenneth Branagh remake, there were many film adaptations, the first of which (from 1899) can be seen here .

If you enjoyed this post, you might find something of literary interest in our summary of the curious history of ‘Rumpelstiltskin’ ,  25 great facts about children’s books and our surprising facts about Aladdin and the Arabian Nights .

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20 thoughts on “A Summary and Analysis of the Cinderella Fairy Tale”

Reblogged this on Língua Inglesa .

I always enjoy your posts. Just the sort of facts I find fascinating. Thank you. Kris http://www.awritersden.wordpress.com

We just covered the Brothers Grimm and their grusome tales in the Romantic Period of our senior English lit section. Students are mesmerized by the cruelty and violence of the original fairy tales. One of my favorite versions is Ever After with Drew Barrymore. In the beginning of the film the glass slipper is shown and it is golden glass–which solves both theories of the famous shoe.

I love the Ever After version of this tale as well. The Brothers Grimm tend to be too grim for me. :)

Nice post! I love researching this sort of thing. One of my favorite Cinderella adaptions (shadow puppets) is from 1922 by Lotte Reiniger. You can find it on YouTube.

Interesting to see how far back the story goes. But I thought there was a version (though I can’t remember where) where the stepsisters are forced to dance on hot coals until they died?

This ending seems familiar – though I can’t remember which version it was exactly. Maybe I should reread my old fairytale books. By the way, why are so many suprised about the cruelty in the original fairytales? I’ ve grown up with them and especially the Disney version appeared always too nice in my opinion.

You might be thinking of a version of Snow White where the stepmother is forced to dance in red hot iron shoes until she died.

Reblogged this on Getting Lit Fit .

Huh. Interesting as always.

Reblogged this on your worst nightmare and commented: So gosh-darn cool.

Reblogged this on justthetraveller and commented: Well, that’s New to me.

Reblogged this on Wyldwood Books and commented: Yet another interesting and informative post from interestingliterature.com

I knew of Pentamerone from my time at university along with the Grimm version (which I thoroughly enjoyed), but knew little of the earlier versions. Great reading.

Reblogged this on Beyond The Beyond.. .

Such an intersting post. Loved it.

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Reblogged this on Be Yourself Here!:) and commented: Never Knew this before!

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Cinderella Analysis

Analysis   Charles Perrault

Cinderella story is a classic for a reason. She survived wicked stepmother, evil half-sisters, and midnight curfew just to win the prince's heart. The essence of this tale occurs in many cultures around the world going back as far as writing history.

Further study Cinderella Book Cinderella Characters Cinderella Summary Charles Perrault Biography

The famous fairy tales writer, Charles Perrault, is the author of one of the most famous fairy tales of all time - Cinderella . Just like all other fairy tale writers, he sought inspiration for his works in folk tales, myths, and legends. Perrault was a role model for many later writers, such as the Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Anderson , so his works were retold with slightly altered content.

Cinderella was published in the 17th century and nowadays is one of the most famous and important fairy tales ever written. In addition to this, Charles Perrault published many other fairy tales known to us, such as "Puss in Boots", "Beauty and the Beast", "Little Red Riding Hood", "The Sleeping Beauty in the Wood" and many others.

"The Sleeping Beauty in the Wood" was his first published story but without his signature. At the beginning of his work, the readership refused to accept him because he continued adding eerie details into his fairy tales. Over time, his work became accepted by both children and adults because, in addition to having interesting content, all of his stories always had a clear moral message. The characters have always been divided into good and bad, but in the end, the good always won.

Cinderella is a true representative of a naive and good girl. Through the fairy tale, we get to know her life, the jealousy of her half-sisters and stepmother, but also the realization of all her dreams, and we come to the happy ending that all good, diligent people deserve.

She didn’t lose her kindness even after the death of her mother, or even after everything her evil half-sisters and stepmother did to her. She endured everything patiently. Later, she meets the prince and gets everything she has always dreamed of. She got real love and a man who loves her back. In the end, she forgives everyone who harmed her and doesn’t feel the need to take revenge. Her kindness overcomes all adversity and shows us that with our heads held high, we inflict the greatest defeat on jealous people.

There are several thousand versions of this fairy tale. The oldest ones were recorded in China and Ancient Greece, which differ in details, but the essence is the same and in both, it is about a girl who loses her shoe. However, this version written by Charles Perrault, which he published in 1697, is the most famous. The Brothers Grimm published their version of the story at the beginning of the nineties, which was far scarier.

The earliest printed story of Cinderella appeared in 1634 at the Pentamerone, a collection of oral folk tales compiled by Giambattista Basile, a Neapolitan soldier, poet, and courtier. Here Cinderella is called Cenerentola.

Although the title of the story and the name of the main character differs depending on the language, in most versions Cinderella’s name suggests "ashes". Why is Cinderella named Cinderella? Since she has been ignored by the rest of her family (especially her evil half-sisters), poor Cinderella sits among the ashes in the chimney-corner - thus her name.

The ‘rags to riches’ change comes about when Cinderella, who hopes to go to the ball, has her wish come true and thereafter meets the prince. Even though she has to return home early, losing one of her shoes after which the prince searches for her. This is perhaps the most romantic moment in all of the literature and so far, the most familiar one.

In 1982 Roald Dahl rewrote the tale about Cinderella and published it in his Revolutionary Rhymes. The most important detail in his version is the part when one of the half-sisters replaces Cinderella's glass shoe with her shoe. Even though the shoe later fitted her half-sister's foot flawlessly (as expected), the prince refused to marry the half-sister and instead - beheaded her. The despotic prince does the same to the other sister, and he would do the same to Cinderella too if her fairy godmother hadn't interfered and saved her life by fulfilling her wish to marry an ordinary man instead of the prince. So, once again, we have a happy ending, just not the one we expected.

Charles Perrault's version has been adapted into many features and animated films, radio dramas, theater plays, and is probably the most famous Disney animated version from 1950, which was nominated for an Oscar. In 2015, Kenneth Branagh adapted the famous fairy tale into a feature film in which Cate Blanchett played the evil stepmother.

While Cinderella stories are popular, the various objects that are predominantly expressed in the story are becoming essential symbols. Some of the dominant symbols in the story include the main characters, animals, clothing, a glass slipper, and a pumpkin. All of these things help Cinderella to marry her Prince Charming and, below, you’ll find them explained in detail.

Literary Elements

Genre: fairy tale

Setting: unspecified; once upon a time in a kingdom

Point of view and Narrator: third-person with an omniscient narration

Tone and Mood: starts sad mood and gradually crawls toward happiness and ends joyfully

Style: eerie, serious

Protagonist and Antagonist: The protagonist is a poor girl Cinderella, while the antagonists are her stepmother and half-sisters

Major conflict: Cinderella’s stepmother forbade Cinderella to go to the royal ball

Rising action: fairy godmother makes it possible for Cinderella to attend the royal ball, but she must return home by midnight

Climax: the Prince arrives at Cinderella’s house to try the glass shoe

Ending: the prince discovers that Cinderella is his beloved and marries her.

Symbols and Metaphors

Clothing - clothing is the main detail of transformation for characters from Charles Perrault's fairy tales. In these stories, clothing signals climbing social mobility. In "Puss in Boots", the Puss can get an audience with the King only thanks to his boots. Puss transforms his master by tricking the king into giving his third son a set of royal attire. Only then is the third son royal enough to attract the attention and curiosity of the princess. Cinderella shares a similar course. In her rags, she has no chance of getting married to the prince. Nonetheless, after her fairy godmother turned her rags into beautiful dresses, Cinderella can rouse the prince’s love.

Glass slipper - the glass slipper is an iconic symbol. The glass is transparent and brittle. In the Cinderella story, the glass slipper represents the natural beauty, purity, gentleness, and true identity of the main character. It serves as a medium in which she shows her identity that attracts the whole kingdom, and most of all the prince.

While the glass is fragile, which symbolizes its gentleness, she has never had a problem with glass slippers. Because it can be seen through, glass represents its purity. The beauty of the glass slipper also represents Cinderella’s natural beauty that no one could dispute. While all of these characteristics are some of the positive symbolism represented by glass slippers, it is also clear that it is also the negative symbolism.

For example, glass slippers can present her as an opportunistic girl. This is because Cinderella gave up coming to the ball the king organized for her son when her half-sisters and stepmother forbade her. She had no clothes or shoes for the event, and she went to the event only after her godmother offered her help with magic.

The prince also believes that a slipper can only be matched for one foot. Cinderella's foot paired with a slipper shows how the two fit together perfectly, which is a sign of true love.

Animals - the animals used in the story also serve as a symbol. Some of the animals used include lizards, mice, and rats. In most cases, all these animals are considered dirty. For example, rats are mostly found in disgusting places. They can also be found in gutters and water tunnels.

In the story Cinderella, the godmother turns these animals into coachmen, servants, and even horses. In addition, these animals become characters who serve the main character as she prepares to attend a ball organized by the king. Therefore, based on the roles that these animals play in the story, it can be assumed that they represent a lower class. Since Charles Perrault wrote this version in 1697, the story may attempt to depict class relations during that period.

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Cinderella by Charles Perrault

by Tiffany Buck | Aug 2, 2021 | Children's Books , Classics , Fantasy , Middle Grade Books , Romance , Young Adult

Author’s Worldview

Year Published

Family, kindness, forgiveness, love

Reviewed by

Cinderella: it’s a story everyone knows. The heroine goes from comfort to rags and then rags to riches, her virtue rewarded. Disney did the Cinderella story quite well, twice in fact. But there’s more to the story. It’s a tale rooted far in the past and full of Catholic virtue. It was Charles Perrault, often recognized as the father of fairytales, who wrote-down this French version in 1697. Here Cinderella exhibits extreme kindness to all around her, but more importantly, forgiveness.

Versions of Cinderella are found across the globe. The virtue of forgiveness is what sets Perrault’s Cinderella apart from all the others. After Cinderella marries the prince, she moves her stepsisters to court and finds husbands. This act of love towards her stepsisters who treated her harshly is sadly often left out. Perhaps, Perrault’s Cinderella had a real life inspiration―St. Germaine Cousins.

In 1579, more than one hundred years before Charles Perrault published Cinderella, a weak little girl with a deformed hand was born in France. Germaine Cousin’s mother died and her father, Laurent, remarried, to a woman named Hortense. Despite Hortense having children of her own, she despised sweet Germaine and seemed to take pleasure in doling out abuse. No matter how badly Germaine was treated she always responded with kindness. It wasn’t too long before the village began to recognize this holy child. In 1601, Germaine Cousin died at the age of twenty-two. To some this may seem like a sad ending, but in reality she lived happily-ever-after. St. Germaine was taken to the kingdom of God by her prince, Jesus. May we all be so fortunate?

Fairytales are rarely taken down from the bookshelves and read.  “Yet they teach us- to paraphrase G. K. Chesterton- that just because a dragon exists doesn’t mean it can’t be slayed.” The dragons in Cinderella are cruelty which she overcame with kindness. Isn’t this how we are supposed to live as Catholics? Treat others the way you want to be treated. I love Cinderella and encourage everyone to read Charles Perrault’s version of this classic tale.

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Table of Contents

About the book, about the authors.

Charles Perrault is the author of the 1697 classic"" Stories or Tales from Times Past,"" which had the added title on the frontispiece, ""Tales of Mother Goose,""

Product Details

• Publisher: NorthSouth Books (April 1, 2002)
• Length: 32 pages
• ISBN13: 9780735814868
• Ages: 4 - 8

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Cinderella Fairytale

Illustrated By:  Suzie Chang

Part 1: A Girl Named Cinderella

ONCE UPON A TIME a girl named Cinderella lived with her stepmother and two stepsisters.  It was Cinderella who had to wake up each morning when it was still dark and cold to start the fire.  Cinderella who cooked the meals. Cinderella who kept the fire going. The poor girl could not stay clean, from all the ashes and cinders by the fire.

“What a mess you are!” her two stepsisters laughed.  That is why they called her “Cinderella.”

One day, big news was announced in their village.  It was time for the Prince to find a bride, and the King and Queen were going to have a ball!  All of the young ladies of the land were invited to come.  The stepsisters were wild with joy. They would wear their most beautiful gowns and fix their hair in the most splendid way. No doubt they would be the one to win the favor of the Prince!

Cinderella now had extra work to do.  She had to sew two fabulous gowns for her step-sisters in the latest fashion.  

No doubt they would be the one to win the favor of the Prince!

“Faster!” shouted one stepsister.

“You call that a dress?” screamed the other.  

“Oh, dear!” said Cinderella.  “When can I–“

The stepmother marched into the room.  “When can you what ?”

“Well,” said the girl, “when will I have time to make my own dress for the ball?”

“You?” barked the stepmother.  “Who said you  were going to the ball?”

“Did you hear that?” One stepsister rolled back with laughter. "Cinderella, going to the ball?" 

“Looking like that ?"  Her stepsisters roared with laughter.  "They'd never let that mess in the front door!"  

Cinderella thought to herself, “I may look like a mess but I am not a mess, not really, And if I could, I would go to the ball.”

Soon the big day came.  Poufed and pampered, the stepmother and stepsisters were ready to leave for the big night.

Part 2: The Big Party

A fine carriage arrived to pick them up. The stepmother and stepsisters hopped inside.  

“Good-bye!” called Cinderella.  “Have a good time!” But the stepmother and stepsisters did not turn to respond.  The carriage door shut and off they were, in a cloud of dust.

“Ah!” groaned Cinderella as the carriage clip-clopped down the cobblestone street.  “If only there was a way for me to go to the ball, too!”

Then - Poof!  All of a sudden, in front of her stood a fairy.

“You called?” said the Fairy.

“I did?” said Cinderella.  “Who are you?”

“Your Fairy Godmother, of course!  I know what you wish, and I have come to grant it.”

“But…” said Cinderella, “my wish is impossible.”

“Excuse me!” said the Fairy Godmother in a huff.  “Did I not just show up out of thin air?”

“I suppose you did,” said Cinderella.

“Did I not just show up out of thin air?"

“Then let me be the one to say what is possible or not!”

“Well, all right," said Cinderella.  She looked down at her dirty clothes. “But look at me.  I cannot go to the ball.”

“You do look a bit of a mess, child,” said the Fairy Godmother gently.

“Even if I had something nice to wear," said the girl, "I would have no way to get there."

“Dear me, all of that is possible,” said the Fairy. She tapped her wand on Cinderella’s head.

At once, Cinderella was perfectly clean.  What's more, she was dressed in a beautiful blue gown!  Her hair was set up high on her head in a golden band.

“This is amazing!” said Cinderella.

“Who said I was done?” said the Fairy Godmother.  She tapped her wand again. At once, a beautiful carriage came to be, with a driver and four white horses.

“Am I dreaming?” said Cinderella, looking around her in astonishment.

“It's as real as real can be,” said the Fairy Godmother.  “But there is one thing you must know.”

“What is that?”

“The magic lasts only to midnight.  At the stroke of midnight, it will be over.  Everything will go back to how it was before.”

“Then I must be sure to leave the ball before midnight,” said Cinderella.

“At the stroke of midnight, it will be over."

“Smart cookie,” said the Fairy Godmother.  She stepped back. “My work here is done.” In a puff of smoke, the Fairy Godmother was gone.

Cinderella looked around.  "Did that even happen?"  But there she was in a fine gown, with a golden band in her hair.  And there were her driver and four horses.

“Coming?” called the driver.

"I suppose it did," said Cinderella.  She stepped into the carriage, and they were off.

Part 3: The Ball

During the ball, the Prince felt despondent.  “Why do you have that sad look on your face?” the Queen said to her son.  “You would think you weren't at a royal ball your father and I are hosting just for you, so you can find a bride.”

“I know you and Father are looking out for me,” said the Prince.  Yet something was wrong. He had already met most of the young women at the ball, and after he said “Hello,” there was nothing more to say.

"Look!"  Someone pointed to the front door of the ballroom, at the top of the stairs.  

All heads turned.  Who was that lovely maiden stepping down the stairs?  She held her head tall and stepped with grace and elegance. Who was she?  No one knew.

“There is something about that young lady,” said the Prince to himself.  “I will ask her to dance.” He walked over to Cinderella.

“Have we met?” said the Prince.

“I am pleased to meet you now,” said Cinderella with a bow.

“I feel as if I know you,” said the Prince.  “But of course, that's impossible.”

“I feel as if I know you," said the Prince.

“Many things are possible,” said Cinderella, “if you wish them to be true.”

"Do you really believe that?" said the Prince.

"I know it," said Cinderella. 

The Prince felt a leap in his heart.  He and Cinderella danced. When the song was over, they danced again.  And then again. All the time they were talking and laughing.  Soon the other maidens at the ball grew jealous.  “Why is he staying dance after dance with her ?” they said. “Give someone else a chance.  How rude!”

But all the Prince wanted to do was to stay with Cinderella.   In fact, they danced so long that Cinderella did not see the clock.

Part 4: The Clock Strikes

“Dong!” struck the clock.

Cinderella looked up.  

“Dong!” rung the clock again.  

She turned to the clock.  “Oh, my!” she cried.  “It's almost midnight!”

“Dong!” called the clock.  

“Why does it matter?” said the Prince.  "The night is young."

“Dong!" called the clock.

“Dong!” rung the clock again.

“I must go!” said Cinderella.  

“Dong!” went the clock.

“But we just met!” said the Prince. 

“Dong!” rung the clock.

“I must go !” said Cinderella.  She ran to the steps.

“Dong!” cried the clock.

“I cannot hear you,” said the Prince.  “The clock is too loud!”

“Goodbye!” said Cinderella. The ran up the stairs as fast as she could.

“Please, stop for a moment!” said the Prince.

“Oh, dear!” she said as one glass slipper fell off her foot on the stair.  But Cinderella kept running.

“Dong!” said the clock.

“Please wait a moment!” said the Prince.  

“Goodbye!” Cinderella turned one last time.  She rushed out the door.

“Dong!”  The clock was quiet. It was midnight.  

“Wait!” called the Prince.  He picked up her glass slipper and dashed out the door to follow her.  

He looked around but could not see her blue dress anywhere.  “This is all I have left from her,” he said, looking down forlornly at the glass slipper.  He noticed that it was made in a special way, to fit a foot like none other. “Somewhere that young maiden has the other glass slipper,” he said.  “I will find her, and when I do, I will ask her to be my bride!”

Part 5: The Search

From village to village, and from cottage to cottage went the Prince.  One young woman after another tried to fit her foot inside the glass slipper.  But none could fit. He asked if they had the other glass slipper.  None did. And the Prince moved on.

At last the Prince came to Cinderella’s cottage.  

“He is coming!” shrieked one stepsister as she looked out the window.

“He is here, at the door right now!” screamed the other stepsister.  

At last the Prince came to Cinderella's cottage.

“Hush!” hissed the stepmother.  “He'll hear you!  Now get ready. One of you must fit your foot in that slipper, no matter what it takes!”  The stepmother swirled around to face Cinderella.  "Get out of my sight," she glowered, "Go to your room right now and stay there!"

The Prince knocked.  The stepmother flew open the door.  “Come in!” she said in a sweet, sultry voice. “I have two lovely daughters you must see.”

The first stepsister tried to fit her foot in the glass slipper.  

As hard as she tried, her foot could not squeeze in. The second step-sister tried to fit her foot inside, but no dice.  And neither of them had the other glass slipper.

“Are there any other young women in the house?” said the Prince.

“None,” said the stepmother.

“Then I will take my leave,” said the Prince.

“Maybe there is one more,” said Cinderella, stepping into the room.

“I thought you said there were no other young women here,” said the Prince.

“None who matter!” seethed the stepmother.

“Come here,” said the Prince warmly.

Cinderella stepped up to him.  The Prince got down on one knee and tried the glass slipper on her foot.  

It fit perfectly!  "Well, I suppose I have the pair back again," said Cinderella.  And from her pocket she took out the other glass slipper!

“I knew it!” he cried.  “You are the one!”

“ What ?” shouted a stepsister.  

“Not her !” screamed the other stepsister.

“This cannot be !” shrieked the stepmother.  

But it was too late.  The prince looked into her eyes.  He knew that this young woman was the very same one he had met and danced with, and loved talking to.  He did not see the cinders in her hair or the ashes on her face.

“I have found you!” he said.

“And I have found you,” said Cinderella.

And so Cinderella and the Prince were married, and they lived happily ever after.

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136 Comments

IS GOOD TO BE FAIR WITH OHTERS

Suzie Chang’s enchanting illustrations breathe life into the timeless Cinderella fairytale! Her artistic brilliance captures the magic, making every page a journey into a world of wonder. Bravo, Suzie!

Every thing is possible if you are patient.

If you act mean, nothing will get done.

That the dream that you wish will come true!!!

The Story is sooo cool!

THIS IS A RESPONSE FROM STORIES TO GROW BY. Rama, tell us–what do you think was most cool about Cinderella?

a cool story and i think this story will be my favorite

That anything is possible

My little brothers words : ‘ This platform is amazing ! I sometimes feel like i am reading an actual book with easy word meanings and and it has pictures ! if i were to rate this reading platform it would be a 10/10 ! ‘ And i completely agree with him , this is an amazing reading platform with easy vocabulary and sentences .

My brother thinks that this story teaches you that you need to treat others the way you want to be treated because you never know how they might turn out to be in the future.

It show us that is not good to be a wicked person.

This book was so fun to read I loved that she found him?✨?

Really good and simple language which has simple meaning and vocabulary also. I got it all.

Happy endings do come true for those who keep their word.

My daughter’s words: The book was awesome and I love it!!

I liked the part when it said “dong”!

Why is everyone in these comments “just learning about how you shouldn’t be rude to people”? Bruh, I learned that when I was 4.

We must not think that we’re better than others.

Don’t judge anyone and love everyone.

That is not nice to be mean

I love this story the same way I love books

This story is sóóóooooooooooó cool!!!

Really good for night time story reading if adults are too tired to read just relax and watch the words, also good that there are pictures there too my little girl loved looking at the pics.

this story was so nice and I am feeling very good for reading the story, I got some English conversation. Thank you.

I love how the godmother said it will all be gone after midnight but the slippers stayed

After growing up, I realized the prince can just recognize the girl through her appearance. He does not need to have all the girls try on the shoes.

I love the way you can read it and listen to the words that it says. ??

I learned that it is not good to do bad things to others and if you do, bad will come back to you. And to care about others, you should be kind to people and not do what you don’t want others to do to you. They are people so do not do it the end.

What I learned about today’s topic called Cinderella is that: 1. We should be nice to others because when we do bad things to others, bad will come back to us. 2. We should not make people suffer and make fun of them because at the end it will be your turn.

I like this story because it tells that if we have faith in ourselves and are patient, then even an impossible wish can come true. I like Cinderella a lot for this.

If you wish something it is possible.

It tells the reader that nothing is impossible if you believe.

IS TRYING TO BE PATIENT

Basically the moral of Cinderella is: people should always fight for what they want with a good heart and hard work. And wickedness and envy will lead to negative consequences, whereas perseverance will lead to a happy ending. And no matter what your situation is, don’t give up on your dreams.

The moral of the story : Do not be rude Nothing is impossible And bad never wins but good every time wins

Nothing is impossible.

The moral of the story is that nothing is impossible. And also to not be rude .

It tells us nothing is impossible.

It tells us nothing is impossible

The story is trying to tell you that nothing is impossible

It was good and I never heard this version before that’s one reason why it’s good another is that the stepmom and sisters got what they deserved

The story is trying tell us that nothing is impossible.

That anything is possible. If you keep walking forward with courage and hope, you’ll find what you need

i like the story Cinderella but this one is the best ever!

This story tells that nothing is impossible

Do not lose hope. No matter the difficulties you meet in life, there is still hope.

Never stop dreaming??

Hold that dream and keep dreaming it.

Your sound is beautiful

That keep on wishing on your dream and it will come true.

In one of my classes, there is a class called Discovery Aces. We are learning about Theme. To answer “Say what you think the story is trying to show you….” I think, the theme is “Don’t doubt yourself even when others doubt you.” I thought this story was a very good thing and I liked the pictures but sometimes they looked really different. Me and my teacher were having a lot of fun reading this book. We had a lot of laughs.

I loved that the speaker was reading with so much expressions, and the right ones too!

The story might be showing us that if you believe in yourself you can accomplish whatever you want.

3.The story is trying to tell us to be neat and nice.

People good evening sir/ma this is a very interesting story and I think it has a very good lesson

This is the lesson I have learned. To be kinder to my family and those who need it. It’s called kindness and respect to the people who are not nice.

Wow! Lessons well received.

Cinderella let her stepsisters be mean because she is really nice and they treated her like a slave. Cinderella changed in a really good way. She went from a slave to a princess and found her prince. The story is showing you that you can be anything you want to be. 7/10

Cinderella let her stepsisters be mean to her because she was their slave, she had no choice.

Cinderella changed because she went from being the maid to being engaged to the prince.

The story was trying to show me not to give up on your hopes because mean people boss you around.

I think this story is showing me that people have to be very kind.

Wow, this story is amazing. I can keep reading this as long as I want. I love it so much!

Wow! I like the story. It is not good to lie be jealous. it is a moral lesson

Cinderella was nice so didn’t want to be mean to the step sisters.

Cinderella found out that good things happen to good people.

That good beats bad.

cause Cinderella has no choice

It teaches me to persevere through hard time and never to be jealous…My own blessing must surely locate me in due season even if am hidden in the valley.

Be kindness and be brave is what this story tells us. If you are a servant or anything, when you do good thing you also deserve good.

Hi from Turkey! We should treat people in equal no matter who!

because she thought that if she let her step-sisters be mean to her, one day they would begin to act nice to her and treat her well.

This is trying to tell us that we should be hard working and never give up on ourselves.

What a nice and lovely story, I loved it much more than any other story.

It taught us not to treat others differently because if your life is bad it can always change in the future.

Cinderella was changed from a slave to a princess. She grew more strong by leaving her step mother and step sister and marrying the prince. She learned that she is way more than what she was.

(1) Cinderella let her stepsisters be mean to her because later on in life she will have better than her stepsisters. Also, she will know that once she meets or has someone in her life who loves her, she can get back at them because she married the prince and now her stepmother and sister can be her maids or whatever she wants to call it. Next, she got to dance with the prince and her stepsisters were jealous.

(2) I pick the stepsisters if I was them and rude to Cinderella, I would feel bad, mad and sad. Bad is for why have I been rude to her? She could grow up more than me and marry someone better and I may or may not marry someone. I would feel mad because I wouldn’t get to dance with the prince and have a better life than her. And I’d feel sad because I was rude and for other reasons.

(3) To always be nice and way more, but I have to go.

The End ,,,, by E and B TOOK 5 MINS TO WRITE THIS THANKS FOR TELLING !!!!?

I think what the story is trying to tell us is to treat others the way you want to be treated, and don’t underestimate others. ?

This story was great, it really helped me fall asleep at night when I felt sick. This was a great telling of the story.

It teaches us that you have to be nice or else the other person will get all the good and fun stuff

I think Cinderella wanted to make her stepsisters like her. So she tried to be nice, hoping they would.

This story is trying to teach us that we should treat every one equal

1. Because then she won’t have anything to eat or survive. 2. Cinderella grew and changed because she got married and was happy to be with someone that makes her happy. 3. To not let anyone judge a book by its cover because you have lessons to learn everyday and you don’t know it.

This help me a lot and it calms me down. This one was a hit to victory. I want hear more stories like this one. Question 3- I think anything is possible, and number 2 is Cinderella

It teach us not to make fun of someone ???

Why did the step sisters and step mother were mean what did she do to them so sad ????????and that’s a nice story but sad By Maria

IT TEACH US NOT TO BE MAKING JEST OF SOMEONE

This is my daughters favorite story and I love the pictures/paintings

Q1 Maybe she believed their insults. Maybe hearing the insults so often made her believe them. Or she didn’t have any support when she stood up to them. Maybe she didn’t think it would be good manners or proper to speak back.

1. Cinderella let her stepsisters be mean to her because if Cinderella says something rude about her stepsisters then her stepmother will say, “It is not the stepsisters fault, it is your fault.” 2. Cinderella changed because she doesn’t have to do the work again for her mean stepsisters and stepmother. 3. I think the story is trying to tell us that if you really really really want to win at something but you loose because the person you were mean to will win, for example if you were mean to someone and then there is a competition 1 day then you really want to win but you won’t because the person who you were mean to will win.

1. why did Cinderella let her stepsisters be mean to her? Because Cinderella didn’t want to hurt them, or she loves them.

The stepmother is being rude and hatefull

External beauty many can achieve, its the inner beauty that makes one unique.

Thanks for your hard and amazing work, my son and I are very appreciative.

Cinderella from the beginning of the story was like a maid at home and in the end of the story she became a princess and she will live at the castle. We should treat people with respect and not make fun of them.

1. Cinderella let her stepsisters be mean to her because if Cinderella says something rude about her stepsisters then her stepmother will say ” It is not the stepsisters fault, it is your fault.” 2. Cinderella changed because she doesn’t have to do the work again for her mean stepsisters and stepmother. 3. I think the story is trying to tell us that if you really really really want to win at something but you loose because the person you were mean to will win, for example if you were mean to someone and then there is a competition 1 day then you really want to win but you won’t because the person who you were mean to will win.

Say what you think the story is trying to show you.

I feel that the story is trying to say that whatever good you do, good will come back to you.

Question 3— Say what you think the story is trying to show you.

the story is trying to say that nothing is impossible

Question 1: I would imagine Cinderella realized her position. Although her step-family mistreated her greatly, they were still her family and some small part of her cared for them. Cinderella was a Baron’s daughter. She could’ve easily written to the constable about the mistreatment and fought for the rights of her title. But Cinderella had a spirit of forbearance. She was kind and had a good heart. Maybe she knew the realities of those in that era who found themselves in a pitiable state.

This is soo good to let your mind rest?

I love this story because it has a good end and the lesson is to be kind to other people no matter if they are poor or rich the thing that matters is to be kind to everyone and if we all do that we can make the world a better place and live our happily ever after life

Question 1 : Cinderella starts the story as a Housemaid to her stepmother and stepsisters while they go and boss her around. But Cinderella stills hopes to go to the ball with the Prince and continues to hope despite being bossed around by her stepmother and stepsisters. Then she eventually does meet her magic fairy after her stepmother denies her request to go to the festival. The Magic fairy dresses her up and takes her to the festival as a princess but tells her to be back before midnight. She forgets about midnight and rushes home while her prince does a kingdom-wide search. He eventually finds Cinderella and buts her magic slipper on and they get married happily ever after.

Question 2 : I think one of the themes of the story is to be hopeful, yet still try. In the story Cinderella is rugged and Dirty and has abusive parental units and sisters who are tormenting her, yet she still hopes and tries to go the the festival. She kept on hoping and eventually she did get to the ball but she didn’t get their without some help and without trying and hoping.

Beautiful story…. My lesson from the story.. Never ever think that we are better than the person who sit next to us…

Cinderella is so nice ?♥️♥️♥️♥️?❤️❤️ The message of the story is that be kind Because you don’t Know your future or what is the blessings of the day ❤️❤️❤️?????

Que 1 Cinderella is good and kind but she’s in a situation where these character traits would not normally flourish. She has to work hard at menial tasks, she’s forced to wear tattered clothing, and she is cut off from a support network and isolated in the attic. She should be miserable and lonely.

Que2 It is often said that some things get better with time, and in the case of Cinderella I would have to agree. Although I know the story and have seen multiple versions numerous times, experiencing the Nashville Children’s Theatre’s version of Cinderella presented me with ideas I had never considered in the context of the story.

Cinderella is hard worker and she deserves a break. Cinderella should marry the prince cause she’s good person. She works hard and takes care of her stepsisters and her stepmother. At the end she finally gets married to the prince and has a happy life .

Helps me to learn things i don’t know and to not do bad things.

I love this story ?? it’s so calming

THIS WAS AMAZING WHO EVER MADE IT !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Cinderella let her stepsisters be mean to her because if she tried to fight back she would just get yelled at and pushed around even more. Cinderella thought she should go to the ball because all the young women were invited and being a woman she felt that she needed to go.

Cinderella lived with her step mother and stepsisters. She had no where else to go so she did everything they told her to do. She was always a mess and never looked clean like them.

She knew she was beautiful and not a mess. She wanted to look nice for the Prince too.

Cinderella let her stepsisters be mean to her because she had to do their jobs like her stepmother told her to. She was scared of her stepmother. She thought she should go to the ball because the prince said all young ladies should go.

So they could rest.

Because she did not feel she was a mess.

She had no way of stopping her step sister from being mean to her. If she would fight back her step mother would have been more hateful to her. She had to do what they said because she had no where else to go.

All of the women of the village were invited, Cinderella being a woman of the village felt like she should go.

Cinderella let her stepsisters be mean to her because if she would’ve said something then her stepmother would of yelled at her

Cinderella wanted to go to the ball because she thought it would make her happy

Cinderella wanted to go to the ball because it would make her happy but she didn’t want her stepmother to yell at her anymore.

Wow! Thank you! I constantly needed to write on my blog something like that. Can I take a part of your post to my blog?

Because she didn’t think she was a mess. Because she is a nice person and deserves better.

I like this story. There’s magic inside this story

answer 1 : because at last they were family. answer 2: her thoughts were different from the others.

1: she thought she was the maid

2: her step sisters got to go and she wanted to go as well

because she knew they would make life unbearable for her, if she disobeys them.and she needed them even if they were the most annoying people.

1 Cinderella let her half-sisters be wicked and cruel to her because she had asked her mother to be kind and not be cruel to others.

2 She thought if she was alone she would feel lonely, so she let her step-mother and step-sister go to the dance.

It teaches us how to respect people. It is a very touching story and it makes me feel happy anytime i read the story, the place i like most is when the fairy godmother came and transformed her from a tattered girl to a beautiful girl with a blue gown and a band on her hair and a glass shoe.

Cinderella should to the ball because it would make her happy. She did not want her stepmother to yell at her more.

1,Beacause cinderella did not want to be mean to them.

2.Beacause her stepmother and stepsisters went to the ball.

Cinderella let her stepsisters be mean to her because she promised her mother she will never be mean to people Cinderella thinks she should go to the ball because her stepsisters, and stepmom was going and she thought she should go too.

Cinderella let them be mean to her because she promise her mother at she we’ll be kind nice and never be mean to people

I think Cinderella let her step sisters be mean to her because she felt like she had no choice to listen to them

I think Cinderella thought she should go to the ball because she felt like since she lived with them and they were going to the ball she should be included to.

I learned so much from this is to not judge by its own dress or look

Wonderful ?????????

I’m not sure. Cinderella I think just wanted to please other people that she didn’t have time to think about them being mean for her. Cinderella thought she should go to the ball because, if her family got to go then why won’t she be able to?

infact i enjoy it,its lovely

I wish that i could be a cindrella

I very much like this story

wow i wish i was cendarella

lovely story I enjoyed it

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The slippery genius of the Cinderella story

Cinderella has endured for hundreds of years. That’s because it gives us a way to talk about families.

by Constance Grady

The fairy tale of Cinderella has a rep for being a bit retrograde. It’s a story about a girl whose passivity and meekness in the face of abuse is rewarded by a fairy godmother who hands her over to a man, goes the usual criticism. It’s the story of a girl who can’t even make it to a party without magical help.

But like all fairy tales, Cinderella doesn’t actually have an inherent value system or morality. It’s an obliging story that’s been told and retold so often that it doesn’t really have a stable moral anymore. Instead, it can have any moral.

In medieval Europe, Cinderella tended to triumph because she was clever and lucky. In the 19th century, the brothers Grimm, who recorded the version of the story that Americans are most likely to think of as canonical, centered Cinderella’s triumph on her kindness and her beauty. And as the story was told and retold, Cinderella moved back and forth between being the active author of her own fate and a passive, voiceless doll.

Over the past few decades, Cinderella has been repackaged over and over again as a feminist icon. Just this year, Rebecca Solnit, the feminist writer who coined the term “mansplaining,” published a children’s picture book titled Cinderella Liberator . It ends with Cinderella opening her own bakery and forming a lasting platonic friendship with the prince, who gives up his title to become a farmer.

The morality of Cinderella may not be consistent over the centuries, but the basic plot is: In every Cinderella, the heroine is a daughter who is betrayed and abused by her mother or stepmother, and she triumphs at the end because of her innate virtue. The virtue in question changes depending on who is telling the story.

That’s because what gives Cinderella its power isn’t its morality. It’s the way the story thinks about families.

Cinderella parses fundamental family questions. How do we combine two families? And how do family structures survive when children stop being children?

Early Cinderellas were tricksters

Early Cinderellas tended to be wily trickster characters who schemed their way to the top, says Jack Zipes, a professor emeritus of German and comparative literature at the University of Minnesota and one of the foremost scholars of fairy tales in the world. Zipes traces Cinderella back to ancient Egypt and China, but he says one of the earliest European versions of the story came from Giambattista Basile. Basile called his 1634 version “ The Cat Cinderella ” (“Cenerentola” in Italian, but it translates to Cat Cinderella in English), because his Cinderella was clever like a cat.

Cat Cinderella murders her first wicked stepmother after she gets tired of the abuse, and she repeatedly pokes her father with a pin until he agrees to marry her governess next. The governess eventually proves to be just as wicked as the first stepmother, and the rest of the story continues along familiar lines — except that Cinderella triumphs because she is smart enough to outwit her wicked stepsisters and scam her way to the ball, and because she is lucky enough to have fairy allies. Basile’s moral at the end, “You must be mad to oppose the stars,” nods to the importance of fate in his story.

But the central conflict here is the same one that we know and recognize in modern Cinderellas: Cat Cinderella’s mother is dead, and her father has married a new wife. (Two new wives, actually.) What happens to their family now?

In Marie-Catherine d’Aulnoy’s 1697 version, “ Finette Cendron ,” our heroine is pointedly the cleverest of three daughters. Her sisters are named Fleur d’Amour (Flower of Love) and Belle-de-Nuit (Beauty of the Night), but the Cinderella figure is named Fine-Oreille (Shrewd Listener) and nicknamed Finette, or Little Clever Girl. Finette’s adventures unspool in a story that reads like a Cinderella/Hansel and Gretel hybrid, and when she eventually triumphs over her wicked mother, her wicked sisters, and the passel of ogres who want to eat her, it’s through her exceptional cleverness.

Finette is also exceptionally kind, but the narrator of “Finette Cendron” hastens to assure us that being virtuous doesn’t make her special. Instead, Finette’s kindness is important because being kind to bad people makes those bad people hilariously angry. “Do favors for the undeserving until they weep,” the narrator advises the reader in the rhyming moral lesson. “Each benefit inflicts a wound most deep, cutting the haughty bosom to the core.” Finette, in other words, was the original troll of the pre-internet world.

Finette’s story isn’t quite the same as the Cinderella we’re most familiar with now. Her wicked mother is her biological mother, her beautiful sisters are her biological sisters, and the mother is targeting all three of the daughters because she believes the family doesn’t have enough food to feed both parents and children. But the bones of the conflict between them is one that we see repeated over and over in fairy tales, including the Cinderella we know best today: What happens when a daughter reaches puberty? How does a mother handle a daughter who might be a sexual threat?

But although the conflict in these early Cinderellas is familiar and universal, the virtues that allow Cinderella her victory aren’t. In these stories, Cinderella may or may not be kind, and she’s usually at least pretty enough to clean up well in a ball gown, but that’s not why she wins in the end. She wins because she’s smart, and because she’s lucky. The moral system in these stories is one of chaos and happenstance, where the best thing you can do is forge powerful allies and be as clever as possible.

Charles Perrault’s 1697 “ Cinderella ” is the one that seems to have influenced the Grimms’ version most strongly — and it was the first to make Cinderella’s fateful shoe a glass slipper. In Perrault’s version, Cinderella is a little more passive than Cat Cinderella or Finette were (at no point does she murder anyone or poke anyone with a pin), but she actively collaborates with her fairy godmother to come up with her scheme, and she takes pleasure in deceiving her wicked stepsisters. In the end, the narrator informs us that Cinderella is victorious because of her beauty and her kindness — and because of her courage, common sense, and good fortune in having a fairy godmother.

It was with all those literary versions of Cinderella already recorded, and plenty of folklore variations floating through the oral tradition, that Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm published their Cinderella in 1812 in their first edition of Grimm’s Fairy Tales . And then revised their stories to publish them again in 1819. And then again and again, revising more and more, until by 1864 they’d published 17 editions of Grimm’s Fairy Tales .

Over time, the old trickster Cinderella loses her voice

Scholars don’t agree on why, exactly, the Grimms kept revising their stories. There’s a general consensus on the Grimms’ tendency to turn wicked mothers into wicked stepmothers, as they did over time for “Snow White” and “Hansel and Gretel”: It seems to be a gentle bowdlerization, an attempt to keep the biological mothers in their stories models of virtue. For the Grimms, says Zipes, mothers were meant to be “nice.” (Cinderella’s wicked stepmother, though, is always a stepmother for the Grimms, and the story goes through few structural changes from one edition to the next.)

But the Grimms continued to fiddle with their stories in other ways as they republished, and the possible explanations for some of those changes are controversial.

Zipes argues strongly that most of the changes the Grimms made to their stories as they revised were in the pursuit of accuracy to the oral tradition, and that they were just editing as they found more versions of Cinderella floating through folklore. But Ruth Bottigheimer, a folklorist at Stony Brook University SUNY, has a different idea.

Bottigheimer argues that the Grimms were necessarily influenced by their position as bourgeois 19th-century Germans when they wrote down the fairy tales they had collected, and that consciously or unconsciously, they edited the stories to correspond to their own moral values. “Who tells the tales?” she asks in her 1997 book Grimms’ Bad Girls and Bold Boys . “That is, whose voice do we actually hear?”

In Grimms’ Bad Girls and Bold Boys , Bottigheimer tracks the speech across the Grimms’ editions of “Cinderella,” looking at which characters get to talk out loud (direct speech) and which characters have their sentences summarized instead (indirect speech). What she finds is a consistent pattern: “Direct speech has tended to be transferred from women to men,” she writes, “and from good to bad girls and women.” In other words, as the Grimms continue to edit the story, the “good” women — Cinderella and her dead mother — start talking less and less. The men and the “bad” women start talking more.

In the Grimms’ 1812 version of the story, Cinderella has 12 lines of direct speech, her stepmother four, and the prince four. But by 1857, Cinderella is down to six lines of direct speech. Where she protests her poor treatment in 1812, she obeys unquestioningly in 1864; where she lies to her stepmother in 1812, she is silent in 1864. Her stepmother, meanwhile, is up to 12 lines of direct speech in 1864, and the prince to 11.

Bottigheimer argues that for the Grimms, silence is both gendered and moral: Good women illustrate their virtue through their silence and passivity. Bad women show their badness by talking, which is unwomanly and hence wicked. Men, who are strong and active, should speak at will.

The Grimms may or may not have erased Cinderella’s direct speech with the intention of making her more passive, but it certainly does seem to have vanished over time. And as the Grimms’ version of the story spread, the trickster Cinderella from 200 years earlier vanished entirely. Now Cinderella wins because of her moral virtue, and part of the way we can see she’s virtuous is that she is silent.

But while the Grimms may have altered Cinderella’s personality over time, they kept her family problems fundamentally stable — and they’re the same problems that show up in the Disney version, too. Cinderella’s mother is dead, and her father’s new wife is targeting Cinderella. How can the family survive?

Cinderella endures because it helps us think about our families

Zipes has a theory about why Cinderella has lasted as long as it has, no matter how often it’s edited or rewritten to express new moral lessons. He thinks it’s helping us think about a fundamental problem.

“In our brains, there’s a place that we retain stories or narratives or things that are important to the survival of the human species,” he says, “and these stories enable us to deal with conflicts that come up time and time again that have never been resolved.”

In Cinderella, Zipes says, the conflict is: “How do you mix families?”

Since the 17th century, Cinderella stories have consistently focused on a heroine whose mother has died, and whose father’s new wife favors her biological children over her. Zipes calls the story type “The Revenge and Reward of Neglected Daughters”: The heroine loses status after the death of her mother, but in the end she rises up more powerful than she ever was before. Traditionally, the thing that makes Cinderella win — her beauty or her kindness or her cleverness — is the thing that the narrator points to as important for us to emulate in the moral of the story. But that attribute can be practically anything, and it won’t change the shape of the family story.

Zipes argues that this family story has always been enormously important. The question of how to mix families successfully was a major problem in pre-20th-century Europe, when it was common for women to die in childbirth — and it also became a giant question in a different way starting in the 20th century, he argues, because “there are so many divorces that the Cinderella story is something that we rely on in our brains.”

Cinderella is also a family story on a more universal level. It’s one of a group of fairy tales — “Look at Snow White!” says Zipes — in which the heroine reaches sexual maturity and promptly becomes the object of intense sexual jealousy from her mother figure. The father figure in these tales is either utterly ineffectual in the face of the mother’s abuse or, in a story like the Perrault fairy tale Donkeyskin — a story in the Cinderella vein, which sees its heroine fleeing from her father after he proposes marriage to her — becomes a sexual threat to his daughter.

Depending on how you look at that repeated fairy tale narrative of jealousy and danger, Cinderella is either the classic Freudian family fable or it’s the story of women competing for male attention under a patriarchal system where they know they’ll need that attention to survive. Either way, it is an extremely durable story. We’ve been telling it over and over again for centuries.

We’ve told it with a multiplicity of Cinderellas: with a silent Cinderella and the scheming Cat Cinderella and tricky Finette, with Disney’s pretty and passive Cinderella, with Solnit’s kind and rebellious Cinderella Liberator. They’re all there, and they’re all waiting to talk to us about our families. That’s what Cinderella is for.

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IvyPanda . (2018) 'The Cinderella Essay'. 27 June.

IvyPanda . 2018. "The Cinderella Essay." June 27, 2018. https://ivypanda.com/essays/cinderella/.

1. IvyPanda . "The Cinderella Essay." June 27, 2018. https://ivypanda.com/essays/cinderella/.

Bibliography

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Book Review: Chinese Cinderella: the True Story of an Unwanted Daughter

The true story "Chinese Cinderella" is about a young Chinese girl named Adeline who faces the struggles of being unwanted and unloved. Adeline is seen as bad luck because her mother died after she was born. Her stepmother, Niang, hates her and favors all other siblings besides Adeline. Adeline achieves academic awards and good grades in hopes to make her family proud however they still see her as nothing. Throughout the book she faces many different problems all relating to her family mistreating her. Adeline is even sent to an orphanage at one point due to her friends coming to her house to throw a party for her. Not only does she face physical issues, but Adeline faces mental and emotional issues. Despite these issues, Adeline stays strong until the end and continues to try her best.

I read this book for a book report and was not at all disappointed."Chinese Cinderella" was sad but heartwarming. During multiple points in the book I cried. Adeline's feelings are very relatable and real. I thoroughly enjoyed the book."Chinese Cinderella" is in a genre of books I do not generally read however I was surprised and actually liked it. It is one of the best books I have read this year; I would definitely recommend it.

Booktopia to begin trading again after being bought by online electronics store digiDirect

Topic: Book Publishing Industry

Booktopia was a champion of Australian authors before its sudden collapse last month. ( ABC News: Emilia Terzon )

Booktopia has been sold to online electronics store digiDirect after going into administration

Administrator McGrathNicol said the deal enabled the immediate resumption of trading for the business.

What's next?

Administrators are now preparing to convene a second creditors meeting.

The administrators of online book retailer Booktopia have confirmed they have secured a buyer for the troubled business.

The Australian company appointed administrators in July, after building up deep debts totalling an estimated $60 million.

The vast majority was owed to publishers who had been supplying it with stock, while $15 million was owed to customers with orders and gift vouchers.

McGrathNicol said it had organised the sale of Booktopia on Friday to online electronics store digiDirect, which it described as "a leading Australian-owned omnichannel consumer electronics retailer".

"Booktopia has been a key part of Australia's publishing industry for 20 years, and transitioning the business to such a well-known Australian retailer is a great outcome for all stakeholders," Keith Crawford, a partner and administrator at McGrathNicol, said.

The administrator said the deal would enable the business to immediately resume trading, with the new buyers confirming a formal relaunch was set for late August once operational processes resumed.

The digiDirect acquisition included the Angus & Robertson and Co-Op Bookshop brands and about $14 million in inventory.

Shant Kradjian, the founder and owner of digiDirect, said there were significant opportunities to revitalise Booktopia's business and introduce systems and processes.

"There are clear opportunities for shared expertise and efficiencies that will eventually create a better experience for Booktopia and digiDirect customers, however that is a conversation for down the road," he said.

However, the ABC understands publishers and customers are unlikely to see anything from the sale.

DigiDirect will retain Booktopia employees

The tender was managed by McGrathNicol's deals team and supported by Booktopia's secured creditor, Moneytech, which provided funding to the administrators to preserve the business pending the sale process.

As it was finalised, digiDirect confirmed to McGrathNicol that it intended to hire more than 100 employees, with former Booktopia staff encouraged to rejoin the group to "return it to its past glories before growing from there".

Orders being fulfilled in Booktopia warehouse. ( Supplied: Booktopia )

"We are incredibly pleased to have completed the sale of the Booktopia business to the owner of digiDirect," Mr Crawford said.

"The transaction will result in the retention of all remaining employees, the recruitment of some 100 additional employees and continuity of supply for Booktopia's trade creditors."

Mr Kradjian was among several high-profile bidders, which were rumoured to include Kogan.com, Woolworths, Dymocks and QBD Books.

The digiDirect founder said he had been looking to expand into "new retail verticals" when Booktopia came up for sale.

"I'm excited about this acquisition and glad it could be kept in Australian hands," he said.

What happens to previous book orders?

When Booktopia went into administration, there were about 150,000 orders worth about $12 million that went unfulfilled, many of them pre-ordered books that had not yet been delivered to the company.

An estimated $3 million was also owed to customers with gift cards.

The administrators said digiDirect was offering "special arrangements" to customers with unredeemed gift cards.

However, it is understood the final sale price was nowhere near the $60 million Booktopia owed to creditors and the deal does not include the book retailer's debts being paid off.

McGrathNicol said the sale price "will not be sufficient to provide for a return to shareholders".

This means only secured creditors like banks and Booktopia's employees are likely to see cash from the sale.

After the retailer's collapse, some customers who were owed books from the company managed to get refunds from their credit providers, such as PayPal, while publishers might have had their debts covered by credit insurance.

One prominent publisher told the ABC they welcomed Booktopia's sale to digiDirect because it had online sales experience and cashflow that would allow sales to continue for publishers.

Booktopia's main competitor was American technology giant Amazon, a sprawling online marketplace that has become the largest online retailer in the world.

Industry players say the gap in the online sales market left by Booktopia's collapse has seen customers migrate to Amazon as well as other players such as The Nile.

Booktopia was founded in 2004 by Steve Traurig and brothers Tony and Simon Nash.

It celebrated its 20th year in business in February, but since its debut on the ASX in December 2020 it lost more than 98 per cent of its value and last traded at $0.05.

Before it went into voluntary administration, the book retailer had been grappling with profit losses, a fine from the consumer watchdog for breaching consumer law with deceptive marketing tactics, and a revolving door of senior executives.

Booktopia's chief financial officer Fiona Levens resigned in May and chief executive David Nenke followed in June.

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New College of Florida library dean placed on administrative leave after book disposal

Shannon Hausinger, New College of Florida's dean of the library, has been placed on administrative leave, a college spokesperson confirmed Monday.

Her departure comes following increased attention to the college's libraries after hundreds of books could be seen overflowing from a dumpster behind the Jane Bancroft Cook Library Thursday afternoon. With the disposing of library books, New College also disposed of materials from the now-defunct Gender and Diversity Center — a student-run and student-curated library of books on subjects such as the LGBTQ+ community, Black stories and women. These books lived across campus at the Hamilton Center, a student-life and dining building.

Details of Hausinger's departure, including reason and length, were unclear as of Monday afternoon. She had been with New College since February of 2024, according to her LinkedIn profile.

New College of Florida spokesperson Nathan March said Hausinger's leave was "taken after discovering that the library did not follow all of the state administrative requirements while conducting the routine disposition of materials."

It's unclear the specific state requirements were not met, but New College's original statement from Thursday referenced Florida Statute 273 as reason it could not donate books instead of throwing them away.

However, F.S. 273 states the college could donate or sell surplus books.

Videos and images from Thursday afternoon's book disposal have circulated the internet and garnered millions of impressions , causing national outlets such as Axios and ABC News to write stories.

In a statement sent Monday afternoon to the college's students, faculty and staff, New College President Richard Corcoran acknowledged the public's frustration and concern surrounding the book disposal situation and criticized media reporting on it.

"Unfortunately, much of the coverage has been sensationalized, catering to the narratives of our critics," Corcoran wrote. "While the optics of seeing thousands of books in a dumpster are far from ideal, it is important to understand that the disposition of materials is a necessary process in libraries, and ensures that our collection remains relevant, up-to-date, and in good condition for our community’s use."

This is a developing story, check back for updates.

Follow Herald-Tribune Education Reporter Steven Walker on Twitter at @swalker_7. He can be reached at [email protected].

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Breaking news, brazilian woman arrested for alleged drug-fueled ‘goodnight cinderella’ murder of us businessman.

A Minnesota businessman died in an alleged drug-fueled robbery in Brazil earlier this month — and police have arrested a young woman for the so-called “Goodnight Cinderella” plot, cops said.

D’wayne Antonio Morris, of Minneapolis, was found dead in his rented apartment in Copacabana, Rio de Janeiro, on Aug. 8, the local outlet g1 reported .

Morris, 43, arrived in the country just one day before he died, police said.

He was believed to have been drugged, which caused him to convulse and foam at the mouth, g1 added .

Letícia Clara Bento da Silva, 23, was identified by Brazil’s Civil Police as the prime suspect in Morris’ death.

Da Silva and a second, unidentified woman allegedly drugged Morris with GHB, a powerful depressant, and robbed him before fleeing the apartment.

Drug-induced robberies in which the victim is incapacitated or dazed by GHB, Rohypnol or another substance are known in Brazil as “Goodnight Cinderella” schemes.

In larger doses, GHB can cause loss of consciousness and respiratory depression, which can result in death.

Morris and a friend are believed to have met da Silva and the second woman while out in the Lapa neighborhood.

The foursome supposedly had drinks at a bar before returning to Morris’ apartment. Morris’ friend felt dizzy and unwell, so he went to a different location, according to reports.

Morris and the two women arrived at his apartment after midnight.

The women were captured on surveillance cameras leaving the building and getting into a black car about two hours later.

Da Silva is also a suspect in a string of other drug-induced thefts, the police said.

She faces murder charges in connection with Morris’ death.

“We offer our sincerest condolences to the family for their loss and stand ready to provide consular assistance,” the US Consulate in Rio de Janeiro said of the American man’s passing.

“We are closely monitoring local authorities’ investigations regarding the cause of death. Out of respect for the family during this difficult time, we have no further comment.”

Morris was the president and founder of Blue Waters Consulting and Soul Community Development Corporation, where he managed a $14 million business portfolio.

“He was a fun partner to have,” Morris’ partner, Tamantha Richman, told CBS News .

Morris was the sole provider for the couple’s blended family, which included his child and Richman’s three kids.

As of Tuesday morning, a GoFundMe for Morris’ funeral and burial had raised over $30,000 of its $50,000 goal.

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Car insurance rates could jump 50% in 3 states this year. Here's where they are.

By Aimee Picchi

Edited By Anne Marie Lee

Updated on: August 20, 2024 / 9:05 AM EDT / CBS News

There's some bad news ahead for the nation's car owners, with a new report forecasting that auto insurance — one of the biggest drivers of inflation this year — will continue to rise in 2024. In fact, residents of three states could see their coverage rates spike by 50% in 2024. 

That's according to a new report from Insurify, a company that provides data about auto insurance rates. The typical U.S. insurance policy will jump 22% this year to an average annual premium of $2,469 by year-end, the report found. That comes after drivers saw their policies jump 24% in 2023, it noted. 

The three states where insurance rates could jump by more than 50% this year are California, Minnesota and Missouri, the Insurify report found. Drivers in those states could see their rates rise by 54%, 61% and 55%, respectively.

Auto insurance remains a pain point for consumers after experiencing more than two years of elevated inflation. And even as the overall inflation rate is cooling — the Consumer Price Index dropped to 2.9% in July , the first time since March 2021 it's dropped below 3% — drivers are continuing to see their policy rates rev up, fueled by more climate events that are causing vehicle damage. 

"Increasingly severe and frequent weather events are driving up auto insurance premiums," Insurify said in its report. "Hail-related auto claims represented 11.8% of all comprehensive claims in 2023, up from 9% in 2020, according to CCC Intelligent Solutions."

Drivers in Maryland currently pay the highest average rate, at $3,400, for annual full coverage as of June, the Insurify analysis found. Their rates are projected to jump 41% to $3,748 by year-end compared with the state's 2023 rates, it noted. The second most expensive state is South Carolina, with an average policy premium of $3,336 in June. That could rise by 38% to $3,687 by the end of the year versus its 2023 rates.

As CBS News has reported, there are a few additional reasons, aside from climate events, that are  driving up auto rates  — even if your driving record hasn't changed. 

First, the costs paid by insurance providers to repair vehicles after an accident, such as for labor and parts, have increased more than 40%, and insurers are passing those increases onto drivers. Secondly, because lawyers are more often involved in handling accident claims than in prior years, settlements are increasing, which also boosts insurance costs. 

Some drivers are avoiding filing claims

The surge in auto insurance rates is prompting drivers to change their behavior, according to a new report from LendingTree.

About 4 in 10 insured drivers who have been in an auto accident or incident have skipped filing a claim with their insurance company, its survey of 2,000 U.S. consumers found. About one-quarter of drivers who filed a claim said they later regretted it. 

Drivers who avoided filing a claim said they did so because the damage was minimal or the deductible was higher than the cost to fix their vehicle. But another 42% said they skipped an insurance claim because they didn't want their rates to jump. 

"Once you've been involved in an accident of any type, insurance companies see you as riskier to insure," LendingTree auto insurance expert and licensed insurance agent Rob Bhatt said in a statement. "Your rates will eventually come down if you avoid claims for three to five years, depending on your insurance company. But you're going to feel a financial squeeze until then."

Still, Bhatt said it's typically worth filing a claim if the repairs will cost a few thousand more than your deductible, even if your rates subsequently rise. 

"The whole point of having car insurance is to prevent an accident from leaving you in financial hardship," he said.

Aimee Picchi is the associate managing editor for CBS MoneyWatch, where she covers business and personal finance. She previously worked at Bloomberg News and has written for national news outlets including USA Today and Consumer Reports.

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