Never mind Branagh – my mother wrote a Cinderella story you can believe in

The new film version of Cinderella has been criticised for its dainty fairytale princess. Ella’s Big Chance by Shirley Hughes sees Cinders as a real girl

It is hardly surprising that Kenneth Branagh’s saccharine Barbie-Cinderella, with her tiny waist and crinoline dress, has caused a storm in Hollywood and irked cinema-going women, let alone those wanting to see changed female role models on screen.

The actor-cum-fairy-storyteller – and his critics, to cheer them – would have done well to heed an acclaimed retelling of Cinderella in a book of more than a decade ago, which won the Kate Greenaway medal, the highest honour in illustrated children’s books, for 2003.

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