Revisiting Cinderella

Looking for new books is a natural this time of year as we search for holiday gifts for friends and family.For librarians it's also a time to catch up on the year's books that we've missed during the busy summer and fall. It's been a good year for YA novels in which new young authors experiment with old stories and formats. One of the most unusual approaches to the Cinderella story is Malinda Lo's Ash,which combines a classic Cinderella story with some elements of Irish folklore. The combination works and Publisher's Weekly includes Lo as one of the rising new stars of the YA publishing world. There is something very encouraging to see that as books stream out of publishing houses year after year, some of them repetitive and clearly designed to capture a media sensation of the day, there is still room for a fresh new approach that succeeds. Teens are lucky because so much of the writing talent today is focusing on the YA market where there is still room for innovation and imagination.