Cinderella Smith: The Super Secret Mystery

by Stephanie Barden, Diane Goode (Illustrator)

Overview

Stephanie Barden has created a great role model for tweens. Cinderella Smith is confident, smart, and very real. Fans of Junie B. Jones and Clementine will love watching Cinderella conquer the problems of third-grade life, and parents will appreciate the vocabulary-enhancing words Stephanie Barden sprinkles through the story.
 
In The Super-Secret Mystery, third in the Cinderella Smith chapter-book series, Cinderella is excited to write a report on an endangered species. She can’t wait to investigate this important environmental issue. But every book she needs to do her research has disappeared from the library! That won’t stop Cinderella. She won’t be stopped by the mean-girl bullies and will follow every clue until she solves the mystery of the missing books.
 
Illustrations by Caldecott Honor winner Diane Goode add to the appeal of Cinderella’s story.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780062004437
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	04/23/2013
Series:	Cinderella Smith , #3
Pages:	139
Product dimensions:	5.70(w) x 8.30(h) x 0.80(d)
Age Range:	6 - 10 Years

About the Author

In between tripping over abandoned shoes, chasing after escaped pets, and searching for lost belongings, Stephanie Barden wrote her first book, Cinderella Smith, which was followed by Cinderella Smith: The More the Merrier. The author teaches classes at Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle, where she lives with her husband, Tom; son, Joe; and eighty-pound lapdog, Otis.

Diane Goode is the illustrator of more than fifty beloved and critically acclaimed picture books, including the Caldecott Honor Book When I Was Young in the Mountains by Cynthia Rylant and the New York Times bestseller Founding Mothers by Cokie Roberts. You can visit her online at www.dianegoode.com.

What People are Saying About This

Patricia Reilly Giff

praise for CINDERELLA SMITH: “Funny and clever! Readers will love this modern day Cinderella. It’s a delight…with the most satisfying ending.”

Editorial Reviews

Cinderella continues to charm with her positive ways of making peace in her third-grade classroom.” — Seattle Times

Fans of this series will appreciate the subtle changes that happen in these sunny stories. The boys and girls are growing up and noticing each other in different ways-they solve problems and forgive each other. Goode’s black-and-white illustrations add humor and emotion to the story. — Kirkus Reviews

praise for CINDERELLA SMITH: “Funny and clever! Readers will love this modern day Cinderella. It’s a delight…with the most satisfying ending.” — Patricia Reilly Giff, Newbery Honor winner and author of best-selling Polk Street School series

From the Publisher

Cinderella continues to charm with her positive ways of making peace in her third-grade classroom.

Seattle Times

praise for CINDERELLA SMITH: “Funny and clever! Readers will love this modern day Cinderella. It’s a delight…with the most satisfying ending.

Patricia Reilly Giff

praise for CINDERELLA SMITH: "Cinderella’s narration carries this early chapter book, and her upper-elementary woes are perfectly captured in her eager and personable voice… Goode’s energetic sketchwork adds to the spirited narrative."

The Bulletin of the Center for Children

praise for CINDERELLA SMITH: "Cinderella’s bouncy energy, captured expertly in Goode’s emotive line drawings, is infectious…It’s hard to leave Cinderella behind."

Horn Book Magazine

praise for CINDERELLA SMITH: THE MORE THE MERRIER: "Cinderella is back and as irrepressible as ever. A simple joy of a book, Barden’s story has given third-graders their very own hero whose final decision of inclusiveness is warming."

ALA Booklist

praise for CINDERELLA SMITH: “Cinderella’s narration carries this early chapter book, and her upper-elementary woes are perfectly captured in her eager and personable voice… Goode’s energetic sketchwork adds to the spirited narrative.

The Bulletin of the Center for ChildrenThe Bulletin of the Center for Children

Cinderella Smith, shoe-losing third-grader, is back, now facing the challenges of a research project. Third-grade is the year when some kids (the Rosemarys, in this case) appoint themselves too old for childish things, while others (Cinderella and her posse) are still happy to jump and hop and slither when the zoo docent instructs them to. Alas! It's hard to know what to do if you are Cinderella Smith. When the class is assigned a research project on animals, the children decide they want to shock and amaze their classmates. This turns out to be harder than they thought. Cinderella wants to study ocelots, but the books she needs mysteriously disappear from the library. She and her friends, the self-named Group in Cahoots, come up with a cooperative way to shock and amaze everyone, even the Rosemarys. Fans of this series will appreciate the subtle changes that happen in these sunny stories: The boys and girls are growing up and noticing each other in different ways--they solve problems and forgive each other, even when the Rosemarys conspire to ruin things. Goode's black-and-white illustrations add humor and emotion to the story and, in the end, even make a lovely visual reference to the real Cinderella story when Charlie puts his basketball shoe on Cinderella's bare foot. Charming. (Fiction. 7-10)

Kirkus Reviews