In the new children's book "Interstellar Cinderella" by Deborah Underwood and Meg Hunt, the heroine lives "happily ever after" in the end, but not because she was a great dancer or a dazzling beauty, but because her engineering skills and her overall smarts impress the prince. Not only that, she doesn’t want to actually marry the prince yet (“I’m far too young to marry,” she points out when he proposes to her). Instead, she wants to become his chief mechanic.
Underwood and Hunt weave this positive messaging into a time-worn tale seamlessly, making it all extremely entertaining and fresh in the process. They include just enough traditionally “girly” (for lack of a better term) details – jewels on Cinderella’s fancy “ball spacesuit,” a “Fairy Godrobot” – to please a young princess story devotee, and they tell the tale in rhyming verse, which speeds the story along and helps hold attention.
We give this book our official "Go Nellie Seal of Approval," and recommend it for your bedtime reading. Read the full review on our companion blog, The Hawkgirl Chronicles.