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There is a moment towards the end which I was dreading as I saw it coming: The traditional marriage proposal. The Prince of the story doesn’t even fall for Cinderella because of her beauty he is smitten with her ability… But Underwood doesn’t bog down in proving how clever she can be with reinventing the source material she sets up the.

Cinderella is a fledgling spaceship repairperson. There’s the requisite evil stepmother, the evil stepsisters, the ball, the fairy godmother, but it’s all tipped on its head. The handling of the Cinderella story owes a lot to Marissa Meyer’s young adult novel, Cinder, whether conscious or by coincidence, but no matter: It’s a great set-up. It’s the story of Cinderella, transposed to outer space, and replacing Disney’s enduring yet whimpering heroine with a little girl of great strength and a solid idea of herself. She wants a story, and we want a conversation starter we don’t want a book that says “Don’t underestimate girls, because girls can do anything!” We want a book that sets us up to say “So, why do you think that character underestimated her? Do you think that was fair? Why?”ĭeborah Underwood’s latest is one such book. Our daughter doesn’t want to be read a lesson, and we don’t want to read one to her. The problem with these books, often, is that they’re Message Books, which in itself isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but Message Books tend to lack a certain… Nuance? We have a spirited five year old (she’d want me to specify five and a half) girl, and it’s of grave importance to us that she grow up knowing that being a girl isn’t a hindrance but rather a gift and a strength, so whenever we go to buy books, there’s usually at least one in the stack with a strong female protagonist.

And the favorite in our house is Andrea Beaty’s Rosie Revere, Engineer. The Detective’s Assistant, by Kate Hannigan, is another. Shannon and Dean Hale’s The Princess in Black is one great example. There has of late, thankfully, been a rash of children’s books with a strong emphasis on female empowerment.