WISHBONES

A Chinese version of Cinderella in which the role of the dead mother's benevolent spirit (or fairy godmother) is played by the magic bones of a great fish—the special pet of the heroine before it was killed by her jealous stepmother. This text is similar to Ai-Ling Louie's Yeh-Shen (1982), though a bit more succinct and with a gentler ending (Yeh-Shen ends with the deaths of the stepmother and stepsister); but Meilo So's illustrations could hardly be more different from Ed Young's misty, empaneled visions. Wilson's text is almost squeezed off the pages by bold paintings crowded with robust shapes, disorienting the eye with distorted perspectives and wildly unconventional color harmonies. A sophisticated, powerful re-imagining of an often overprettified tale. (Folklore/Picture book. 4-8)