Alyssa Moon

I received a galley through NetGalley.

Delphine and the Silver Needle is a middle grade novel expanding on the world of the mice of the classic movie Cinderella. Delphine is a talented seamstress mouse within Cinderella's own household. She was delivered to the chateau as a baby, a tarnished human-sized sewing needle along with her. A request to sew for the mouse-princess leads her to court, where she befriends the pompous Alexander and finds out more about the tailor mice of legend who carried needles like her own. However, when the evil rats who also live in the castle find out about her needle, she and Alexander must flee for their lives. King Midnight of the rats has a collection of needles of his own, and he will stop at nothing to add another piece to his collection.

This is a cute story, but it disappointed me in many ways. Cinderella's story goes on distantly in the background and really has nothing to do with Delphine's tale. I was excited--like squeal-aloud excited--when the major mice from Cinderella made an appearance, but it only lasted for a few paragraphs as a passing cameo. Weirdly enough, the human world (and Cinderella's world) has little bearing on the book, which seemed to miss a major opportunity. I loved seeing how Disney mice worked with oversized human things, like lacing buttons onto the their tails; in this book, the bulk of the action is in the wilderness as Delphine and Alexander struggle to survive. Disney villains don't always have nuance, but King Midnight is pretty much as cardboard cutout as you can get. The ending doesn't satisfy, ending on a major cliffhanger.

I would have liked this book a lot more if it had been stand-alone. I craved more overlap of Cinderella's story, of her world and its mice and magic, and this didn't tap that potential at all.
My early galley ebook did not contain finished illustrations, though the few sketches inside were absolutely darling. Maybe the finished edition will embody more of the Disney vibe when the illustrations are there.… (meer)