Cinderellis and the Glass Hill

by Gail Carson Levine

AR book level: 4.3

This book is by the same author that wrote Ella Enchanted. 

Once upon a time, there was a farm boy and his two older brothers.  The farm boy's name is Ellis and Ellis makes magic powders.  When he was little, he tried to show his floating powder make a teacup float up the chimney to his older brothers, but when they came into the room they saw Ellis covered in cinders so ever since they called him Cinderellis. Ellis keeps making new and different powders trying to make his brothers like him, but they don't pay attention. 

On the other side of the kingdom, there is a castle.  There is a lonely princess whose father the king is always going on quests to find different things.  All that Princess Marigold has for company is her orange cat that her father brought back from a quest.  One of the king's quests went terribly wrong and the King had to stay at the castle for a few years.  Since he could not go on a quest, he made a glass hill and men were supposed to ride their horses up the hill and get three golden apples from the princess to win a chance to marry her.  Marigold didn't want a husband she didn't know. 

Cinderellis tries to compete to get up the glass hill using his powders. 

I liked this story because it was one of those stories based on the Cinderella Story, but wasn't an old fashioned Cinderella story.  I thought that Cinderellis was pretty cool to think about all the ingredients he put in his powders.  For example, in his fluffy powder, he put in feathers from a pillow.