Enchanted by Ella Enchanted!

I prepared myself for a cute, sweet fantasy story when I began Ella Enchanted, by Gail Carson Levine. This is precisely what I encountered for the first half of the book. I couldn’t quite understand why it had received a Newberry Honor. I could readily see why teenage girls would enjoy this book, and certainly that it would translate very well into a romantic comedy aimed at the preteen set.

However, understanding came crashing over me, and I felt such a fool! Of COURSE! It’s a Cinderella tale! This realization did not hit until page 152, when Ella (CinderElla) and Char (Prince Charming) found the glass slippers. Suddenly, I understood. The father . . . the stepmother and two stepsisters . . . a servant in her own home. Oh, what a delicious retelling of this old tale! My next task is to return to this book when I have some additional time (or need to procrastinate a bit) and, with the benefit of hindsight, reread the book and find those clues that I so obtusely missed on the first reading.

As soon as I made the connection, I couldn’t put the book down. I blame a late night and a painful early morning on this lovely book. If only I’d caught on at the beginning, at the first mention of a girl named Ella and her mysterious fairy godmother!

The book is well written. As with Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH, perspective is put to excellent use, particularly in the description of the giants’ wedding (p 120.) I had amusing images of a dark haired girl, with pieces of food the size of her entire face, a napkin more like a table-cloth which barely reached the waist of most of the guests.

I do wonder about the selection of “Lucinda” for the name of the misguided fairy godmother. Perhaps I am reading too much into it, perhaps Ms. Levine liked the name, or perhaps there is some basis for it in one of the traditional tellings of which I’m unaware, but why name such an unenlightened creature as Lucinda, a name based upon light? Symbolically, light means inner wisdom, and the names Lucy, Lucinda, Lucille and so on are all monikers which allude to this lingual origin. I’ll need to think more about this. I was disappointed, too, in the portrayal of Centaurs in this book. Perhaps I am too strongly swayed by my recent reading (and rereading) of the Harry Potter series, but I prefer to think of Centaurs as the strong, silent type, not the silent, empty-headed sort.

I think this story could be used effectively in 4th through 8th grades. Younger than that, al-hough it would make a lovely end-of-day read aloud, the sounds of gagging would overwhelm the parts in which Char and Ella each confess their love; this is highly dependent upon the preferences and personalities of the readers. Interactive read-alouds of Cinderella tales, traditional, modern and "twisted," could surround and accompany this book: Native American, Central American, Egyptian, Indian, various African, and retellings such as Glass Slipper, Gold Sandal http://www.amazon.com/Glass-Slipper-Gold-Sandal-Cinderella/dp/080507953X/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1195443378&sr=1-1 . Or, students could direct the selection of these books by using a webquest, such as http://wneo.org/WebQuests/TeacherWebQuests/Cinderella/The_Cinderella_Project.htm . Students could write their own stories during creative writing that retell the story of one of the other characters in Cinderella, or perhaps another traditional fairytale of their choosing. An excellent resource of traditional fairytales would be The Illustrated Book of Fairytales (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/078942794X ) for such an exercise.

I must admit, even though I’ve been warned that the movie is terrible, Ella Enchanted is now at the top of my Netflix cue. I can’t help it. I know I’ll be disappointed, but I can’t resist the thought that, perhaps, just maybe, some element of the clever, witty and delightful book will translate to the big screen.