Glass: A Cinderella Tale
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- ¥1,700
発行者による作品情報
"Here’s a fast-paced, riveting adventure story for young fantasy fans to enjoy, right down to its 'happily ever after' ending" —ALA Booklist
"Kathy Lasky embellishes and burnishes the time-honored tropes of the Cinderella tale with her customary clarity of storytelling and novelty of invention. Glass sparkles." —Gregory Maguire, New York Times bestselling author of Wicked
Newbery Honoree and New York Times bestselling author of the Guardians of Ga’Hoole series Kathryn Lasky delivers an enchanting prequel to the Cinderella story from the perspective of a young fairy godmother.
In a grand glass house, there was a girl named Bess whose power would, one day, change the fate of her family. . . Bess Wickham has always felt like a bit of an outcast among her family of extraordinary glassblowers, but then an immense, magical power that’s lain dormant in her bloodline begins to emerge. So, when she suspects her family’s business has taken a sinister turn, Bess must find the strength to defeat dark magic and save a certain cinder girl. But will she shatter under the weight of such evil or get her happily ever after?
From Newbery Honor–winning author Kathryn Lasky comes a captivating Cinderella companion, with enchanting spells and endearing animal friendships, reminding us that we have the power to forge our own happy endings.
A Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection!
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Though her family is renowned throughout England for its glassmaking artistry, Bess Wickham craves reality and nature over crystalline perfection, in part due to her affinity for gardening and ability to speak with birds. When she discovers the dark secret behind her family's glass creations, she leaves home to dwell with her animal friends in the woods, where she slowly develops her magical talents. Meanwhile, newly orphaned Estrella, whose recently deceased grandfather worked at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, is sent to live with her distant cousins the Wickhams, who swiftly corral her into indentured servitude. Their fates drawn together by the Wickhams' cruelty and dark magic, Bess and Estrella's paths soon cross, with Bess acting as Estrella's magical benefactor. While fanciful and well constructed, the climax of this loose reimagining of "Cinderella" by Lasky (The Searchers) feels rushed, lending to uneven momentum and lowered stakes. Nevertheless, Lasky adds texture to the familiar elements and story beats by injecting intriguing new twists, such as the increased focus upon magical glass, as well as by recasting the relationship between Cinderella and her fairy godmother as one between two tweens seeking connection and independence. The protagonists read as white. Ages 8–12.
