The Fairy-Tale Fixers: Cinderella - Early Graphic Novel #PPBF

Maria Marshall
Aug 14, 2025
4 min read

Once again, it's the rodents who save the day in Cinderella's fairy tale. Except in this fantastic graphic book, an irascible detective rat and his sassy mouse sidekick lend a whole new humorous twist to the Cinderella story.

Book cover - a black Cinderella, holding a glass shoe, stands under a street light with a PI detective rat-fairy and a mouse, with black line drawings of other fairytale characters on a deep blue background.

The Fairy-Tale Fixers: Cinderella

Author: Deborah Underwood

Illustrator: Jorge Lacera

Publisher: Clarion Books/Harper Collins (August 12, 2025)

Ages: 6-10

Fiction

Themes:

Fractured fairytale, detective rat-fairy, humor, graphic book, pancakes, and friendship.

Synopsis:

The Investigators meet The First Cat in Space in this hilarious graphic novel. Fairy and Mouse will forever change young readers’ perspectives on stepmothers, princes, and pumpkins as they help Cinderella set things right when her carriage veers off course.

Every fairy tale needs a fairy. Because sometimes stories go off the rails, and this fairy knows just what to do to fix them.

Actually, he doesn’t . . . He makes it up as he goes along.

And sometimes he needs help. A lot of help. Which is where Mouse comes in.

Together, she and Fairy will make sure this tale has a happily ever after—just maybe not the one you expect.

Opening Lines:

I was in the office. I'd poured myself a

cup of joe and put my feet up for a well-

deserved rest. Only five minutes till

quitting time, and it was Friday:

Pancakes for Dinner Night!

But then . . .

What I LOVED about this book:

So, I love the voice of the film noir detective rat AND his love of Friday Night as "Pancakes for Dinner Night!" What a perfect opening to appeal to kids and adults. And Jorge Lacera's digital comic/graphic sketches are awesome - capturing both the old-time office feel (rotary phone and analog clock) and the frenetic, jumpy energy of the detective rat.

Internal spread - on the left, a detective rat sits in his office under a clock with his feet on the desk when the phone rings. On the right, six panels of the detective trying emphatically not to take a case at 5pm on a Friday.

Text © Deborah Underwood, 2025. Image © Jorge Lacera, 2025.

At the caller's plea, the "Fairy Tale Fixer" dons his hat and trench coat and high tails it over to the library - "Home to all the saddest stories in the world." Turns out the caller is a house mouse in Cinderella's story and can't stand the incessant screaming. Having gotten out the book (to appeal to the detective), the mouse's solution to a quiet life in the book is to get Cinderella out of the house. After a bit of negotiation, for fifty smackers the rat agrees to take the case AND wear wings, a tutu (over the trench coat) and a tiara to masquerade as a fairy godmother. And they walk into the book . . .

Internal spread - spreading from bottom right to upper left, 8 ribbons full of screams, shouts, and roars with the detective rat and mouse standing shell-shocked in the middle of the screams at the bottom left.

Where the stepmother and stepsisters are berating Cinderella at the top of their lungs. I love the colors, energy, and added bits of humor that Jorge Lacera infused into the illustrations. When the clueless rat (likely not much of a fairytale reader) offers to slip Cinderella a poisoned apple, mouse's resulting tirade could easily rival one by the stepsisters! Fortunately, a palace page arrives with an invitation to a ball and rat see's the solution to everyone's problem and the answer to Cinderella's dream. Afterall, he's a fairy godmother, right?. And with a "Zicka Brick Bow" Cinderella is off to the ball in an enlarged, wheeled pumpkin. Snappy dialogue, bushels of humor, and puns abound as the two rodents are convinced everything will now work out. And it seems like it, mission accomplished. Until . . . the fairytale hits a huge road bump.

Internal spread - on the left, the king and queen, oblivious to the silhouettes of courtiers before them have a arc of "blah, blah"s above their heads. On the right, in four panels on the top, as the prince fills the page with "blah"s, the panels zoom in on Cinderella's face and wide eyes. On the bottom right, Cinderella waves wildly and yells and excuse to a besotted prince.

Now, the rat and mouse have to save Cinderella, again. Deborah Underwood and Jorge Lacera have created a magnificent fracture of a traditional tale, with a ton of twists, heaps of humor (textural and visual), and an underlying question about whether anyone ever asked Cinderella what HER dream actually was. Fast paced and full of fun surprises, this is an excellent graphic twisted retelling of Cinderella. The Fairy Tale Fixers have created a wonderful detective rodent duo with many more tales that need a little tweak. This is a funny. slightly snarky, enthusiastic fractured fairytale graphic book!

Resources:

what do you think happened to Cindy, Phil, and the footman? What kind of ending would you give them and why? Write or draw what you think happened after the fixers left the book.

thinking about the fairy tales you know:
- how could you twist things around to make the story more modern, futuristic, or wildly different? Write or draw a new story for a fairytale, or
- think about an invention that could fix the fairytale. Create a model or draw a diagram of your invention.

pair this the Deborah Underwood's fantastical fractured fairy tale picture books - Jo Bright and the Seven Bots, Reading Beauty, and Interstellar Cinderella, both illustrated by Meg Hunt.

If you missed my interview with Deborah Underwood on Monday, find it (here).

This post is part of a series of blog posts by authors and KidLit bloggers called Perfect Picture Book Fridays. For more picture book suggestions and resources see Susanna Leonard Hill's Perfect Picture Books.