In this retelling of the classic tale by Sarah Thomson is based on the story by Charles Perault. This version draws influence from the court of Louis XIV and is evident in the illustrations by Nicoletta Ceccoli. From the title page we get a glimpse of Cinderella's true nature as a small dark waif holding a broom garbed in worn clothing stares into a mirror and sees a princess staring back. The illustrations in the book are soft, yet colorful lending a surreal feeling to the story. Cinderella is depicted with a child's face holding wide vulnerable looking eyes.
We see her suffering and loneliness, evident in a picture of the young girl with a white face sleeping on the floor in front of the fireplace while a red-eyed rat lurks in the background. The magic moment when her fairy godmother answers her tears with magic is a two page spread that depicts the vines of the pumpkin curling into the semblance of a couch. Cinderella looks on with hands clasped, a mixture of fear and awe in her small face. As she makes her way to the ball, her carriage begins up a road that winds to the top where a castle stands pennants flapping in the breeze. A single sentence marks this momentus trip that would change her life forever, "Cinderella promised to come home by midnight and rode off to the ball." Thomson and Ceccoli repeat this often to emphasize the importance of the event, the minimal use of words and the grandeur of the image spread across the pages. In another example, the prince and Cinderella dance on the balcony with onlookers while the sky and moon dominate the page adding to the dreamlike feeling.
Nicoletta Ceccoli's illustrations evoke the vulnerability and sadness of Cinderella's life, while lending a fantasy feeling to what is happening page by page through soft color and blurry detail. In the final page that shares the prince and Cinderella seated embracing beneath a flowering tree in the shape of a heart with white birds escaping, we know that Cinderella has not only love but peace.
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