Ella Enchanted (Gail Carson Levine)

Author Biography

Gail Carson Levine is the award-winning author of numerous books for children and young adults, mostly inspired by fairy-tales. She lives in New York’s Hudson Valley.

Published By: HarperCollins

Year: 1997

ISBN: 978-0-06-440705-2

Reading Level: Grades 6 and up

Reader’s Annotation:

In this inventive “Cinderella” variation, a fairy’s spell forces Ella to obey every command she hears. But her inner strength, sharp wits, and love for Prince Char just might prove stronger than magic.

Plot Summary:

When Ella was born, the dimwitted fairy Lucinda enchanted her with the “gift” of eternal obedience. Whether she likes it or not, she can never refuse a command. This is merely an annoyance until age fifteen, when her beloved mother dies, her neglectful father sends her away to finishing school, and she finds herself virtually enslaved by obnoxious fellow students Hattie and Olive. In desperation, she runs away to try to find Lucinda and have the curse removed, but without luck – though on the journey, she outsmarts a pack of hungry ogres and befriends the king’s son, Prince Charmont.

Back at home, her life becomes more cursed than ever when her father marries Hattie and Olive’s mother, Dame Olga. Her new stepfamily soon reduces her to a scullery maid. Her only consolations are the secret letters she exchanges with Prince Char. But when Char confesses his love for her, she can’t bring herself to reciprocate, lest enemies use her curse against him. But Mandy, the household cook, is secretly Ella’s fairy godmother. Though she can’t undo the curse, a few touches of her magic combined with Ella’s own irrepressible spirit just might lead to a fairy-tale ending.

Critical Evaluation:

This Newbery Honor book is possibly the most famous novel-length “Cinderella” retelling available, having enlivened countless girls’ middle-grade years and loosely inspired the 2004 film starring Anne Hathaway. It neatly solves every “problem” that feminists find with the classic fairy-tale, first and foremost the question of why Cinderella lets her stepfamily enslave her. Here the cause is a “Sleeping Beauty”-style magical “gift,” bestowed by a fairy who thinks of obedience as a beautiful feminine virtue. Yet despite the curse, Ella is an unquenchably feisty, witty and intelligent heroine, who rebels as much as possible every step of the way. The trope of love at first sight is sidestepped as well, as Ella and Prince Char become good friends months before the ball.

Yet for all its feminist subversions of classic tropes, this is still a truly magical fairy-tale, set in a world inhabited not only by fairies but by elves, gnomes, centaurs and ogres, nearly all of whom have distinctive cultures, languages and abilities. Nor is there any shortage of humor, either from the characters (witty Ella, her buffoonishly horrible stepfamily, the simpering Lucinda), or from the literalness with which Ella’s curse makes her obey every “order.” (“Run off and bang into somebody else” her father snaps when she bumps him by accident – and compulsively, she does.)

Some critics might dislike the implication that a “feminist” Cinderella’s enslavement needs to be “explained” by magic – as if there were any shame or weakness in being abused into submission. Still others might complain that the love story employs the irritating “third act misunderstanding” trope, though at least it’s created purposefully by Ella for noble reasons. Nonetheless, for a warm, clever, magical twist on an old tale, with a plucky heroine easy to love and admire, look no further.

Curriculum Ties:

•Fairy-tale retellings

•Fantasy worlds

•Feminism

Challenge Issues:

•N/A

Why This Book?

For its endearing characters, its humor, its fantastical world-building, and its clever, feminist twists on old fairy-tale tropes, this middle-grade classic is, for want of a better word, enchanting.