A FAIRY-TALE BY THE BROTHERS GRIMM⠀•⠀ILLUSTRATIONS BY LENA GONZALES

I was shocked when I read the Brothers Grimm’s Cinderella for the first time. Much was as expected – the mistreated (soon-to-be) princess, prince charming, the evil stepmother, talking birds, and so on. But then, to my surprise, a stepsister cuts off her toes to cram a mutilated foot into the slipper… and a charming flock of birds peck her eyes out! This was not a Disney story.

Children’s literature, and children’s illustration, have a way of teasing the divide between pink innocence and sick brutality. It was a pleasure to work on this divide with my cousin Lena, a talented artist pursuing her BFA in illustration, fashioning something in the space between Cinderella’s airy reputation and the horror of this 1812 text.