Cinderella’s Magical Wheelchair

Jewel Kats's Cinderella's Magical Wheelchair is a fairy tale for 5 year olds about a Cinderella who uses a wheelchair.

What happens

Everything else you'd expect is here. The stepmother. The twin stepsisters, who are awful. The ball at the palace, which in this version is a costume party.

Cinderella asks whether she'll be going. One stepsister snorts and tells her that wheelchair-mobile princesses don't exist.

Then Stepmother makes a deal. Cinderella makes jewellery, so if she produces something stunning for the twins, she can tag along. They shake on it.

So she spends her days on the chores and her nights gluing garnets onto hair clips to order. Once the house is asleep she works on her own costume, a pair of butterfly wings, stitch by stitch.

That's the best detail in the book. She isn't sitting about waiting to be rescued. She's up half the night making the thing herself.

Worth knowing before you hand it over

The twins tear at her wings with their hands. Stepmother fetches a sharp tool from Cinderella's own workroom and puts a hole in her wheelchair tyre so she can't leave. Then all three go off to the party arm in arm.

That's a nasty moment for a small child, and the nastiness is aimed squarely at her disability. It's worth reading that page with them rather than handing the book over.

The rescue is a lot of fun, mind you. Monique is a student fairy godmother from Enchantment University and she is not very good yet. Her first attempt lands them both on an out-of-service bus.

The second attempt works. Gold rims, a control panel, aeroplane wings, and off Cinderella goes over the rooftops looking like a butterfly.

There's a lovely quiet moment at the palace too. She's brought a get-well card for the prince's father, who is ill, and she tells the prince that both her own parents died of an illness. It's handled in two lines and then the dancing starts.

It's told in the present tense and it's very short, so it works as a one-sitting bedtime story or as something a new reader can get all the way through on their own and feel pleased about.

A note for British readers. The bus is a Toronto one and there's a "downtown" or two, so a couple of words may need a quick explanation.

What to read next

If they like a familiar story given a good shake, Cinderella and the Beanstalk is in the library. Cinders and Jack swap the cow for a bean, climb the stalk together and find a giant fairy godmother at the top of it.