Cinderella Skeleton

Bibliography

San Souci, Robert. Illus. Catrow, David. 2000. Cinderella Skeleton. New York, NY: Harcourt, Inc. ISBN 0-15-202003-9

Plot Summary

Cinderella Skeleton lives with her stepmother and stepsisters in Boneyard Acres. Her mean stepsisters make her work from dawn to dusk and only give her their worn out hand-me-down clothes. When Cinderella happens upon the Prince’s invitation to the Halloween ball, she vows to go. Cinderella Skeleton marches to meet the Great Witch and asks her to cast a spell. After gathering bats, a cat, and a jack-o-lantern for the witch, she is transformed from rags to a beautiful ghoul wearing a gown of lace and satin slippers. The prince falls in love, but Cinderella Skeleton vanishes. Vowing to find his true love, he scours the graveyard with foot bone and slipper in hand until he finds his Cinderella Skeleton.

Critical Analysis

There are many, many versions of the classic Cinderella story available to children today, but San Souci’s spin is superb! Complete with cheeky rhyme and fantastically ghoulish pictures, this book will have the attention of any school kid.

The good and sweet Cinderella Skeleton is taken advantage of by her cruel stepsisters,

Cinderella Skeleton’s - Stepsisters treated her with scorn. - Gristlene was small and mean - And firmly packed with spite and spleen; - Tall Bony-Jane, a scatterbrain - Was just as vile and twice as vain - They worked Cinderella from dusk till morn.

However, when the Prince falls in love with Cinderella, we find the common theme of good overcoming evil.

The eye-catching illustrations do a nice job interpreting a ghoulish graveyard without being morbid. Cinderella Skeleton is obviously from the underworld but has a pleasant look about her skeletal face. On each page the setting is depicted as somewhat obscure and gloomy, but a brilliant pop of fuchsia or red parades across each page enlivens the story.

This book is certainly one that will not collect dust on library shelves. It is delightful and clever in all regards.

Review Excerpts

From School Library Journal
Grade 3-7-Not for the faint of heart, this retelling continues the author's fascination with "Cinderella" tales. In challenging vocabulary and a complex rhyme scheme, the clever narrative tells of Cinderella Skeleton, a wraith who lives in a mausoleum with her horrific stepmother, Skreech, and stepsisters Gristlene and Bony-Jane. She wiles away her days streaking the windows, hanging cobwebs, and feeding bats until the Halloween Ball invitation arrives. A good woodland witch conjures up the usual participants into a funeral wagon, dragon steeds, a gown, and slippers, but in fleeing from Prince Charnel at sunrise, Cinderella breaks off her slippered foot mid-calf. Gross, yes, though later other ghosts break off their shinbones with the hope of fitting the leg-and-slipper remains ("Wire or glue; you're good as new!" snaps the stepmother as she pulls off each girl's foot). Catrow's wonderfully weird pencil-and-watercolor illustrations feature wiggly lines, lurid pink and bilious green accents, large-eyed skeletons, and grotesque mutantlike creatures. The envious stepfamily conveniently shrivels to dust, which is certainly less horrible than other endings (though younger readers will still be disturbed about those broken legs). This darkly humorous and spooky variation will tickle the twisted tastes of upper-elementary and middle-school readers if it is displayed where they'll find it.
Susan Hepler, Burgundy Farm Country Day School, Alexandria, VA
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc

From Booklist
Gr. 3-5, younger for reading aloud. San Souci puts a bizarre spin on the world's most familiar folktale. Cinderella Skeleton "lives" in Boneyard Acres, where she's forced to keep an entire mausoleum supplied with cobwebs and dead flowers while stepsisters Gristlene and Bony-Jane primp and pose before stepmother Skreech. Thanks to the offices of a good witch, Cinderella gets to Prince Charnel's ball and makes her escape just before dawn. As expected, she leaves behind a shoe--but this one has a foot inside. The text is cast in verse, with a complex rhyme scheme that takes getting used to but keeps the lines from sounding sing-songy. Catrow's artwork seems to have taken a tip from Tim Burton's film Nightmare before Christmas (1993). The backgrounds are eerie and elaborately detailed, and the figures are not really skeletons but rather elongated stick figures with mummified heads and moldering, garishly colored finery. In the end, Cinderella Skeleton hobbles out of hiding to be united with her Prince, and off they float, trailing clouds of--something. Share this macabre rib tickler with Stinky Cheese fans. John Peters
Copyright © American Library Association.

Review accessed at: http://www.amazon.com/Cinderella-Skeleton-Robert-San-Souci/dp/0152050698/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/102-5135857-3668922?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1190772153&sr=8-1

Connections

San Souci, Robert. 2006. Sister Tricksters: Rollicking Tales of Clever Females. August House. ISBN 087483791X

San Souci, Robert. 1996. The Red Heels. Dial. ISBN 0803711336

San Souci, Robert. 1996. The Hobyahs. Yearling. ISBN 0440412129