This is the whole tale, the same ten pages it runs in Pillowbook on the phone. Read it here tonight if that is easier. Nothing is cut, nothing asks you to sign up, and every picture was painted for this book.
Reading time is about five minutes at an unhurried pace, one page every thirty seconds or so. The stepsisters are unkind in words only. Nothing frightening.
Cinderella was not her real name. But in the evenings she sat right up against the hearth, because it was the warmest place in a house that was never warm enough, and she always got up again with ash on her sleeves, and after a while everybody called her after the ashes. Her stepsisters were not wicked. They were the sort of people who take up a great deal of room.One morning a card came from the palace, stiff as a roof tile, with a gold edge that came off on your fingers. There was to be a ball, and everybody in the house was invited. The stepsisters read it out four times, each louder than the last, and the house turned upside down for a fortnight. Cinderella pressed the hems and did both their heads twice.On the evening itself she stood in the doorway with a hairpin in her mouth and said she supposed she could come too. The younger sister said, not unkindly, that there was nothing for her to wear, which was true. So the carriage went off down the lane, and the house went quiet. Cinderella sat down by the hearth in her dove-grey dress with a patch at each elbow."Well," said somebody, "that will not do." A round little woman stood in the kitchen in a lilac cloak, though the door had not opened, looking at the hearth the way you look at a job that wants doing before dark. She said she was Cinderella's godmother, which was true, and that they had better get on, which was also true.She sent Cinderella to the garden for the biggest pumpkin there was; it took both arms and a rest halfway. It went out through the door a pumpkin and stood in the lane a carriage, cream-coloured, with a step that folded down. Six mice from the hearth came up six grey horses, still startled, and the old rat from the woodpile made an excellent coachman once he had got used to the hat.Then the godmother looked at the grey dress a moment, and it went from grey to the blue the sky goes just after the sun is down, with silver thread in it like frost on a window. The slippers came last. They were glass, and fitted the way nothing else she owned had ever fitted. "Midnight," said the godmother. "Not a minute after. Then it all goes back."The road ran white under the moon, the lanterns swung, and the whole thing smelled faintly of pumpkin, which the godmother had not managed to fix. At the palace the doors stood open and the music came out into the garden. She went up the steps slowly, because she had never had a reason to go slowly, and it turned out she liked it.Nobody knew her. The prince asked her to dance twice, then a third time, and asked where she was from, and she told the truth — that she lived quite near — and he thought she was teasing. Her own stepsisters stood a yard away and told her all about the ball and their dresses, and she agreed that the sashes did suit them.She had counted wrong, or the evening had, and the first stroke of midnight came out of the clock tower like a plate dropping. She was down the hall and out of the door before the second. On the fourth step a glass slipper came off her heel, and there was no time to go back for it. The carriage was a pumpkin in the ditch by the crossroads, and she walked the rest of the way.The slipper was carried from house to house, and in time it came to theirs on a cushion. The elder sister got three toes in; the younger got further and gave up. Then Cinderella asked, from the hearth, whether she might try, and the whole room turned to look at her. It went on. She took the other out of her apron pocket, put that on too, and stood up. They all went to the palace, and somebody had kept supper back.
The end.
Read any of the 12 tonight, free
12 classic fairy tales, ten painted pages each, one story an evening. No sign-up before you can read.
Yes. All ten pages of Cinderella are on this page, each with the illustration that belongs to it. Nothing is held back for the app.
Is it suitable for a three year old?
It is written for children between three and eight. The stepsisters are unkind in words only. Nothing frightening.
How long does it take to read aloud?
About five minutes at an unhurried pace, which is roughly one page every thirty seconds.
Where do the pictures come from?
They were painted for Pillowbook, one plate per page, in a single visual voice shared across all 12 tales. They are not stock illustrations.
Can I read the other tales here?
Yes. All 12 are on this site in full, free and without an account. The app is for reading them at bedtime — offline, no advertising, one page to a screen — and for the tale it writes about your own child.
