CINDERS AND SPARKS

A Cinderella with 21st-century attitudes begins a fairy-tale quest.

Kelk, a prolific author of light romance for adults, offers younger readers a fractured fairy-tale fantasy that is similarly entertaining. This volume begins as a story about a blended family, a palace, and a ball during which the prince will choose a bride. But nothing is quite what one might expect. There’s Sparks, a talking dog, and a woman named Brian, who is a fairy godmother, and then it’s Cinders herself who wields the magic—though not without difficulty, at least at first. Cinders is messy and prefers being outside. Prince Joderick would rather be baking brownies. The royal family is terrified of fairies, whom they believe to be monsters based on a long-ago rivalry and a royal pact that should have banished all the fairies from their land. However, late in the narrative readers learn information about Cinders’ mother that many might already have suspected. Curnick’s amusing grayscale cartoons show a dark-skinned royal family; Cinders and Brian appear White. There’s plenty of humor in the text as well. The abrupt ending, which takes a significant detour from the original “Cinderella,” will be a jolt to many but leaves the door open for the sequel.

Playful and fun for youngsters who know and love classic fairy tales.