Cinderella and the Beanstalk

Hilary Robinson's Cinderella and the Beanstalk is a rhyming fairy tale mash-up for 5 year olds where two very different stories crash into each other.

What happens

It starts with two lots of bossing about. Jack gets called a lazy boy and is sent to sell the cow. Cinderella gets told to mend, wash and press her sisters' dresses before the ball that night.

Jack's trip to market goes the way you'd expect. An old man swaps the cow for a magic bean. But this bean comes with a promise. It will help the prince find a wife!

The sisters are furious and fling the bean outside. Then Cinderella looks up. The beanstalk has grown right up into the sky!

So Jack and Cinderella climb it together. Who do they find at the top? A giant singing "Fee, Fi, Fo!" But she's a fairy godmother, and she's got a wand.

That's the joy of this one. All the way through there's a bit of a story your child already knows, and then something that doesn't belong there at all. A cloud becomes a carriage. Jack gets to drive it. It's so much fun watching little ones work out which story each bit comes from (and then telling you, very loudly, that that's not how it goes).

The rest of Cinderella is all there. There's the midnight warning, the dancing and the shoe left behind. The ugly sisters get their comeuppance too, and it involves the beanstalk. There's a lovely silly ending for everyone, including Jack.

The rhymes are short and bouncy with just a few lines at a time. That makes it great for reading aloud, and very doable for a child who's just starting to read along with you.

If you've got a reader who knows their fairy tales inside out, this is a brilliant way to play with them. It's also a nice way to start making up your own mixed-up stories at bedtime. What would happen if Goldilocks met the Big Bad Wolf?

What to read next

For another jumble from the same series, try Beauty & the Pea. This time a lonely beast hides a pea under a mattress to find out whether his guest is a real princess.