Rapunzel's Revenge by Shannon Hale & Dean Hale (illustrated by Nathan Hale)
Rapunzel's Revenge is a great book by a great author.
Shannon Hale retells the classic tale of Rapunzel with a little bit of a Mother Goose (Gothel?) tie-in in a wonderfully comic-book style illustrated book.
Hale is funny and thoughtful in creating this new version of Rapunzel, a heroine who realizes that the woman who has been raising her is NOT her mother and that her real mother has been slaving away in Mother Gothel's mines. When Rapunzel rebels, Mother Gothel places her in a towering tree room. Mother Gothel posesses growth magic and so the tree is able to provide everything Rapunzel needs to survive for several years.
Finally on Rapunzel's 16th birthday (after her hair has grown to ridiculous lengths, like everything else in the Forest) Rapunzel rebels for the last time and Mother Gothel commands the tree to stop providing food and shelter. Rapunzel uses her hair to swing to safety and the real adventure starts from there.
Rapunzel immediately meets several characters and makes a friend of Jack, a briefly cross-dressing, goose-toting man with some fairly loose morals when it comes to stealing. Rapunzel and Jack save each other from some seedy characters before heading out of town on stolen horses.
Rapunzel (or Punzie as Jack sometimes calls her) is determined to save her mother from Mother Gothel's mines. With the help of Jack (and a little bit of magic) Rapunzel is able to get into the party Mother Gothel is hosting and save her mother and all the inhabitants that Mother Gothel had oppressed.
The book is a charming retelling of the fairy tale and the illustrations are terrific. Hale is able to use the illustrations to tell a fuller story. My favorite instance of this is when Rapunzel is escaping from her tree tower and the words say that she manages to gracefully escape but the pictures show her falling into the water around the base of the tree. In this way Hale is able to make the heroine both strong and funny. She's not perfect but learning and growing (without the help of Mother Gothel's magic).
Rapunzel's Revenge is a great book by a great author.
Shannon Hale retells the classic tale of Rapunzel with a little bit of a Mother Goose (Gothel?) tie-in in a wonderfully comic-book style illustrated book.
Hale is funny and thoughtful in creating this new version of Rapunzel, a heroine who realizes that the woman who has been raising her is NOT her mother and that her real mother has been slaving away in Mother Gothel's mines. When Rapunzel rebels, Mother Gothel places her in a towering tree room. Mother Gothel posesses growth magic and so the tree is able to provide everything Rapunzel needs to survive for several years.
Finally on Rapunzel's 16th birthday (after her hair has grown to ridiculous lengths, like everything else in the Forest) Rapunzel rebels for the last time and Mother Gothel commands the tree to stop providing food and shelter. Rapunzel uses her hair to swing to safety and the real adventure starts from there.
Rapunzel immediately meets several characters and makes a friend of Jack, a briefly cross-dressing, goose-toting man with some fairly loose morals when it comes to stealing. Rapunzel and Jack save each other from some seedy characters before heading out of town on stolen horses.
Rapunzel (or Punzie as Jack sometimes calls her) is determined to save her mother from Mother Gothel's mines. With the help of Jack (and a little bit of magic) Rapunzel is able to get into the party Mother Gothel is hosting and save her mother and all the inhabitants that Mother Gothel had oppressed.
The book is a charming retelling of the fairy tale and the illustrations are terrific. Hale is able to use the illustrations to tell a fuller story. My favorite instance of this is when Rapunzel is escaping from her tree tower and the words say that she manages to gracefully escape but the pictures show her falling into the water around the base of the tree. In this way Hale is able to make the heroine both strong and funny. She's not perfect but learning and growing (without the help of Mother Gothel's magic).
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