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    Axolotl-Ella

    A Sort-of Cinderella Story

    Author Kate Messner
    Illustrated by Lian Cho
    Look inside
    Hardcover
    $18.99 US
    Clarkson Potter/Ten Speed | Ten Speed Young Readers
    24 per carton
    On sale Jun 02, 2026 | 9780593837993
    Age 5-8 years
    Sales rights: World
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    Cinderella has never been so adorable--or amphibious!--as in this fractured fairytale picture book by New York Times bestselling author Kate Messner, with art by award-winning illustrator Lian Cho.

    Axolotl-Ella is a quick and clever salamander with a daring, deliciously ambitious dream. All she needs to do to make her dream a reality is to meet the Prince at the King’s Festival. So with a little bit of magic from the lake of the night, Ella makes her skin gleam and her gills glow--and conjures the perfect outfit for a fancy party!

    But the Prince talks a lot, and the magic wears off at midnight. Can Axolotl-Ella find a way to make her dream come true, or will she be stuck at the murky lake with her annoying stepsisters forever?

    Bestselling author Kate Messner has created a funny, empowering retelling of the Cinderella story with a confident heroine who's way too practical for glass slippers. Complemented with laugh-out-loud illustrations by award-winning illustrator Lian Cho, and filled with amusing axolotl facts, Axolotl-Ella is destined to become a storytime favorite.
    Once upon a warm and murky lake, there lived a
    quick and clever salamander named Axolotl-Ella, and she loved
    to dance. That’s the first thing you should know about her.

    Axolotl-Ella had big plans for her life.
    Huge plans.
    Deliciously ambitious plans.

    All she had to do was get to the King’s Festival so she could
    meet the Prince. But Ella wasn’t very fancy.

    “Your skin is mottled and green!”
    her stepsister shrieked.

    “Your gills are dull and gray!”

    “You’re frumpy and toadish,”
    her other stepsister declared.
    “You can’t go to the festival looking like that!”
    Copyright © 2026 by Kate Messner, illustrated by Lian Cho. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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    “With an irreverent, chart-your-own-course spirit, it’s a slippery, smart, and subversive story that wriggles free of most fairy tale expectations.”—Publishers Weekly

    Discussion Guide for Axolotl-Ella

    Provides questions, discussion topics, suggested reading lists, introductions and/or author Q&As, which are intended to enhance reading groups’ experiences.

    (Please note: the guide displayed here is the most recently uploaded version; while unlikely, any page citation discrepancies between the guide and book is likely due to pagination differences between a book’s different formats.)

    Read More

    About

    Cinderella has never been so adorable--or amphibious!--as in this fractured fairytale picture book by New York Times bestselling author Kate Messner, with art by award-winning illustrator Lian Cho.

    Axolotl-Ella is a quick and clever salamander with a daring, deliciously ambitious dream. All she needs to do to make her dream a reality is to meet the Prince at the King’s Festival. So with a little bit of magic from the lake of the night, Ella makes her skin gleam and her gills glow--and conjures the perfect outfit for a fancy party!

    But the Prince talks a lot, and the magic wears off at midnight. Can Axolotl-Ella find a way to make her dream come true, or will she be stuck at the murky lake with her annoying stepsisters forever?

    Bestselling author Kate Messner has created a funny, empowering retelling of the Cinderella story with a confident heroine who's way too practical for glass slippers. Complemented with laugh-out-loud illustrations by award-winning illustrator Lian Cho, and filled with amusing axolotl facts, Axolotl-Ella is destined to become a storytime favorite.

    Excerpt

    Once upon a warm and murky lake, there lived a
    quick and clever salamander named Axolotl-Ella, and she loved
    to dance. That’s the first thing you should know about her.

    Axolotl-Ella had big plans for her life.
    Huge plans.
    Deliciously ambitious plans.

    All she had to do was get to the King’s Festival so she could
    meet the Prince. But Ella wasn’t very fancy.

    “Your skin is mottled and green!”
    her stepsister shrieked.

    “Your gills are dull and gray!”

    “You’re frumpy and toadish,”
    her other stepsister declared.
    “You can’t go to the festival looking like that!”
    Copyright © 2026 by Kate Messner, illustrated by Lian Cho. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

    Photos

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    Praise

    “With an irreverent, chart-your-own-course spirit, it’s a slippery, smart, and subversive story that wriggles free of most fairy tale expectations.”—Publishers Weekly

    Guides

    Discussion Guide for Axolotl-Ella

    Provides questions, discussion topics, suggested reading lists, introductions and/or author Q&As, which are intended to enhance reading groups’ experiences.

    (Please note: the guide displayed here is the most recently uploaded version; while unlikely, any page citation discrepancies between the guide and book is likely due to pagination differences between a book’s different formats.)

    Read More

    Additional formats

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