Module 2: Traditional Tales: CinderHazel

Bibliographic Information
Cinderhazel: The Cinderella of Halloween
Author: Lattimore, Deborah Nourse
Publisher: Scholastic Inc. New York, 2002
ISBN: 9780590202329
Interest level: K-3
Reading level: 2.5
Dewey: Fiction
$5,99 paperback

Plot Summary

This is a variant of the Cinderella story. Cinderhazel is the main character and a witch who is anything but clean. The other characters include her 2 stepsisters, evil stepmother, a godwitch, and a prince named Prince Alarming. As in the Cinderella story Prince Alarming is having a ball to choose a bride. Cinderhazel goes to the ball with the help of the godwitch, meets the prince and the two live, "filthy ever after."

Critical Analysis

This variant is meant to be a parody of the Cindreella story. The characters are flat and the reader will have little connection to them or even really care what happens to them.The word Halloween is in the title and the ball is held on Halloween but except for these two references Halloween has nothing to do with the text. The author works hard to create a humorous parody but her effort falls short. The references to dirt and clutter are predictable and not all that original. As an example when Cinderhazel cleans the floor she put a coat of dirt on the floor instead, no suprise here based on her character. Her efforts at housekeeping are described in this manner, "It was Hazel's job to clean the floor. Hazel swept from one end of the room to the other until the entire floor was covered with a thick layer of dirt. " Every other sentence deals with dirt and does get old.
The prince reminds one of Pig Pen in the Peanuts tales but has no appealing qualities.

The illustrations are busy and distract from the text rather than support it. The characters all look alike and go from looking insipid to evil. These drawings are supposed to represent the clutter that surrounds the characters.

Thw writing itself does not draw the reader into the story. Actually the story is so simple and so lacking in detail it seems almost to be a non-story. Even the chants don't work. They are supposed to be rhymes and not all of them do, unless I am mistaken wing and clean do not rhyme.

Despite my reservations it is a simple little story that will appeal to children during Halloween. It also has some good vocabulary the can be used for vocabulary instruction. Students can also have fun rewriting the chants to make them rhyme.

Review Excerpts

I was interested to look at the reviews after I wrote my critique to see what others thought about this text. Did others see it in a more positive light and was I expecting too much from a simple parody? My thoughts were mirrored by the professional reviewers. In fact they felt that modern parodies need to have more well developed characters and story lines then are in the original tales.

Booklist (Volume 94, No. 1 (September 1, 1997) "... but there is no real story, just one situation, and pictures so busy that it's not always easy to make out what's going on. Still, the slapstick will have instant appeal especially at Halloween,
Horn Book (March, 1998) "The chaotic text and illustrations are more puzzling than humorous."
Kirkus Review(1997) "The more dirt the better is the slogan at the heart of this one-joke story, whose humor relies on mess rather than magic."

One review was more positive.
School Library Journal (October, 1997) "Children will delight in Lattimore's humorous watercolor illustrations of green-faced witches with wild frizzled hair. ...The text entertains some clever wordplay."

Connections

This variant like all the others about Cinderella can be used to create comparison graphics. The vocabulary is excellent for Tier II instruction. Students could do sequence activities using selected vocabulary words. A continum of meaning can be created from these words; muttering,growled, pronounced, squealed, cried, and exclaimed. Because the chants do not rhyme students could write their own rhymes and present them to the class.
As a cross curricular connection this text would be a good introduction for a health unit on dirt and disease. At the end of the unit the students could write their own parody with a Cinderella and Prince who are oppoposite of
Cinderhazel and Prince Alarming.

This text can be used to create reading, writing, listening, and speaking activities that will support the new state standards and curriculum requirements despite its short comings.