Rapunzel

Caldecott Honor winner Rachel Isadora's gorgeous collages breathe new life into this classic tale, capturing Rapunzel's striking beauty and the lush African setting-a new home for this story-with wonderful details such as Rapunzel's long dreadlocks and the prince's noble steed-a zebra. Readers will delight in the vibrant illustrations, thrill at the appearances of the frightening sorceress, and chime in with the familiar line 'Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair,' as they follow this well-loved tale.

Caldecott Honor winner Rachel Isadora's gorgeous collages breathe new life into this classic tale, capturing Rapunzel's striking beauty and the lush African setting—a new home for this story—with wonderful details such as Rapunzel's long dreadlocks and the prince's noble steed—a zebra. Readers will delight in the vibrant illustrations, thrill at the appearances of the frightening sorceress, and chime in with the familiar line “Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair,” as they follow this well-loved tale.

Children's Literature

In another of her series of retellings of traditional tales, Isadora moves her Rapunzel to an unspecified African location. The basic story, deftly retold, begins with the husband stealing rapunzel herbs from the garden of a sorceress to satisfy the longing of his ill and pregnant wife. The witch claims the promised baby, locking the now beautiful child in a tower when she reaches the age of twelve. As in the Grimm story, a prince learns the secret of climbing up her hair to Rapunzel in the tower. They fall in love and say marriage vows. When the witch finds out, she abandons Rapunzel in the wilderness, while the despairing prince has blinded himself leaping from the tower in grief. The couple finally reunites for the happy ending. Isadora combines preprinted papers with some of her own oil painted papers to create the vibrant African setting for this European tale. The cut paper shapes produce flat, stylized characters and fragments of landscapes with flowers, trees, and groups of clouds. Our negative emotions are stirred by the witch's ugly features and such scenes as the wilderness where the blind prince wanders in a dull brown landscape with bare black trees and watching vultures, but most scenes are bright with tropical colors and the complex masses of Rapunzel's hair. Reviewer: Ken Marantz and Sylvia Marantz

Rachel Isadora lived in Africa over a ten-year period, inspiring her to create fairy tales in an African setting, such as her previous picture books The Fisherman and His Wife, The Twelve Dancing Princesses and The Princess and the Pea. She received a Caldecott Honor for Ben's Trumpet, and has written and illustrated numerous other books for children, including Peekaboo Bedtime and the Lili at Ballet series. She lives in New York City.