By Charles Perrault
Marcia Brown's Caldecott-winning Cinderella — Perrault's gentle telling, with the fairy godmother, the pumpkin coach, and the glass slipper all where you remember them.
You know this one. It's Perrault's Cinderella, the version most of us grew up with: a kind girl stuck doing every chore while her stepmother and two stepsisters treat her badly. A fairy godmother turns a pumpkin into a coach and mice into horses, sends her to the ball in a gown, and warns her the magic ends at midnight. She runs, drops a glass slipper on the way out, and it turns out to fit only one foot in the whole kingdom. Marcia Brown's soft, feathery pictures won the Caldecott Medal, and she keeps Perrault's gentle touch the whole way through — the stepsisters are forgiven at the end, not punished.
For a child who already loves princesses and ballgowns, this is a lovely way in to the version the movies came from. It tells the story straight, with the magic and the gown and the slipper right where you remember them, and Brown's pictures give a child plenty to sit and look at. It runs a bit longer than a board book, so it works as a nice step up in a read-aloud.