Deborah Underwood

Deborah Underwood gives a fairy tale a mechanical, spacefaring turn in Interstellar Cinderella. Rhymed and illustrated by Meg Hunt, the picture book follows a girl who studies rocket repair, fixes the prince's ship, and chooses work as his chief mechanic over marriage. Chronicle Books published the forty-page edition in May 2015 for children. Underwood's retelling keeps elements such as an invitation, a helpful magical figure, and a lost object, but transforms them into a parade, a fairy godrobot, and a socket wrench. Hunt's gouache, ink, graphite, rubylith, and digital artwork supplies the energetic visual world. The result connects fairy-tale patterning with science-fiction play while giving Cinderella skill and ambition. Underwood also collaborated with Hunt on Jo Bright and the Seven Bots, extending their interest in tales, robots, and young protagonists.