Rapunzel Round-Up

Posted on April 9, 2014 by Katy K.

Trina Schart Hyman's RapunzelI mentioned recently that my daughter has been into Rapunzel. Nearly every day when she comes home, the first thing she does is take off her regular clothes and put on her Rapunzel costume. I think that an obsession like this is the perfect opportunity to explore how stories can be told many different ways, so I have (over time) checked out just about every Rapunzel picture book I could find at the library. Here they are, with lots of variations in illustration style, details in the retelling, ethnicity, and more.

rapunzelberenzy Rapunzel Retold and illustrated by Alix Berenzy. Henry Holt, 1995.
This book opens with a page that looks like it’s taken out of a medieval book of hours, with close-up drawings of the rapunzel plant and a description: “Rapunzel… will grow and bloom in the most desolate wastelands.” Otherwise, the retelling is pretty standard Grimm. The pictures are beautiful, glowing pastels on black paper, with a strong (if perhaps mixed) medieval/renaissance style. It was a little weird to me that the children appear about five by the time the prince finds them – that’s one long hunt!

rapunzelgibbRapunzel Retold by Allison Sage. Illustrated by Sarah Gibb. HarperCollins Childrens, 2010 (UK) and Albert Whitman & Co, 2011 (US).
Oddly enough, only Gibb and Grimm are credited on the cover. The art feels like it could easily be an animated feature film, up-to-date, crisp outlines, a princessy palette and lots of scherenschnitte-style. In this story, Rapunzel is so charming that even the beasts fall in love with her, thus saving both her and the prince. She also gets the tallest tower ever, looking bigger than a modern skyscraper in some spreads.

reallyrapunzelReally, Rapunzel Needed a Haircut! by Jessica Gunderson. Illustrated by Denis Alonso. Picture Window Books, 2014.
This is a made-for-Common Core retelling from Dame Gothel’s point of view. It’s clear that while Gothel has made some mistakes, she really loves Rapunzel and is trying her best. Mostly, anyway. The caricature-like illustrations set the whole story at some indeterminate time closer to the present – Dame Gothel looks to be wearing clothes about a century old, but Rapunzel looks like she’s wearing t-shirt dresses.

rapunzelisadoraRapunzel by Rachel Isadora. G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 2008.
Rapunzel set in Africa, still told with the traditional Grimm words. The cut-out illustrations are beautiful, if stiff. This is one of the better ones for younger readers, as it’s a bit shorter and with more pictures than many.

rapunzelrogaskyRapunzel retold by Barbara Rogasky. Illustrated by Trina Schart Hyman. Holiday House, 1982.
Did I ever mention how much I love Trina Schart Hyman? This is maybe not quite as polished as Little Red Riding Hood or Saint George, but still amazing. The story is straight Grimm, with intricately-detailed German renaissance illustrations. I loved the pictures of the trusting child Rapunzel, the bright birch trees in the dark forest as Rapunzel is taken to the tower, and the passionate kiss even before the prince makes it through the window.

petrosinellaPetrosinella by Diane Stanley Dial Books, 1995.
It turns out that the Brother Grimm weren’t the first to tell the story. Here, Stanley goes back to a much older Neapolitan story from which the Grimms borrowed. Petrosinella is kidnapped at age 7 by an ogress, but steals her magic items and defeats her head-on during her escape with the prince. The illustrations are quite nice as well.

sugarcaneSugar Cane: a Caribbean Rapunzel by Patricia Storace. Pictures by Raul Colon. Jump at the Sun, Hyperion, 2007.
This much longer version spends a lot of time weaving in more character information and culture. It was way too long for the four-year-old, but she still loved to go back and look at the textured pastel drawings.

fallingFalling for Rapunzel by Leah Wilcox. Illsutrated by Lydia Monks. G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 2003.
This is a comic version with silly rhymes and misunderstandings as the prince tries to rescue Rapunzel, who doesn’t need or want it. “’Rapunzel, Rapunzel, throw down your hair!’ She thought he said, ‘Your underwear.’ The story ends up with her throwing down the none-to-displeased maid, who rides off with the prince while Rapunzel walks out the back door.

rapnzelzelinskyRapunzel by Paul O. Zelinsky. Dutton Children’s Books, 1997.
This is the Caldecott winner, and one I bought for myself when it first came out. Zelinsky’s retelling mixes in details from different retellings, such as having Rapunzel betrayed by her dress not fitting rather than a slip of the tongue. The illustrations, as you’d expect, are breathtaking, succeeding admirably at recreating the art of the Italian Renaissance.

What’s your favorite Rapunzel?

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Jinx’s Magic

Posted on April 7, 2014 by Katy K.

Jinx was one of my favorite books last year, so naturally I wanted to read the sequel.

Jinx's magicJinx’s Magic by Sage Blackwood. HarperCollins, 2014.
Back in the Urwald, Jinx is still trying to figure out how his magic works. Using magic the way Simon wants him to is still tricky, but Simon can’t help him with the abilities that come more easily, talking to the trees of the Urwald and seeing the colors and shapes of people’s thoughts. What the Urwald is telling him is that Jinx’s friend Reven is the Destroyer, and it wants Reven out of the Urwald. And Elfwyn’s thoughts about Reven have turned distressingly pink and fluffy. Jinx’s plate is getting increasingly full, what with escorting Reven out of the Urwald and figuring out why the Urwald is worried about him to Simon’s worry about a possible return of the Bonemaster. Eventually, Simon sends Jinx through his magic door to the country of Samara to learn about their magic system, KnIP, and to talk to his wife, Sophie. Things go downhill (as they are wont to do), and soon Jinx is left with no adults to rely on, trying to figure out how to save them and his beloved Urwald.

Like Jinx, Jinx’s Magic is divided into distinct sections, happening in different places with different characters. Jinx, travelling around himself, holds the story together. As before, the characters are genuinely interesting, and there are some nice thinky thoughts, both on the lines of growing up and learning how people work in general, to the problem of how to get individualistic people to work together at need and lots of learning about magic. The action felt a bit steadier to me than in Jinx, which had a quiet first half followed by an action-packed second half. I’m just as happy with the quiet sections, but my experience is that most people like action. I feel like there’s enough going on that I’d recommend it for ten and up generally, though that of course can vary individually. My only real complaint about Jinx’s Magic was that the ending, instead of wrapping up the threads of this story, instead introduced the challenges of the next book and then ended quite abruptly. I’m still waiting anxiously for the sequel.

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State of the Book Basket

Posted on April 6, 2014 by Katy K.

So I thought for a change from just letting you know what I’ve read one book at a time, I’d let you know everything that I have going on book-wise right now. Here goes:
Waiting to be reviewed, I have 7 picture books, 8 middle grade, 7 teen, and 3 adult. (If anyone has tips on speeding up my writing, I’d love to hear them!)

I am currently reading Small Move, Big Change by Caroline Arnold and The Real Boy by Anne Ursu in print to myself. I’m listening to Bloodhound by Tamora Pierce in the car and The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker at home (mostly while washing dishes.)

With the boy, I’m reading The Princess and the Goblin by George MacDonald and we’re listening to The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C.S. Lewis in the car. He’s reading The Deadly Plot from the Sam Silver: Undercover Pirate series (kindly sent me by the publisher) to himself and enjoying it very much. I just checked out the Zeus: King of the Gods graphic novel from the Olympians series by George O’Connor for him, too.

The girl’s library basket currently has two of Mo Willem’s Elephant and Piggie books, Let’s Go for a Drive! and Listen to My Trumpet. We also have Pete the Cat and His Magic Sunglasses by Eric Litwin, Mr. Tiger Goes Wild by Peter Brown, Fairy Tale Comics edited by Chris Duffy, The Princess and the Pig by Jonathan Emmett, and Really, Rapunzel Needed a Haircut by Jessica Gunderson. Typing all this out, I’m a little surprised that the basket is feeling empty. Last night, we read the latest issue of Ladybug magazine instead of library books. I checked Rapunzel’s Revenge by Shannon Hale out for her today (she’s on a Rapunzel kick, as you’ll see shortly.) She’s just decided that she’s old enough to listen to books in the car, too, instead of music, and is starting, like her brother before her, with the Magic Tree House books. She still wants to alternate between books and music, which is fine. We finished Dinosaurs Before Dark this week and will move on to The Knight at Dawn tomorrow.

Of course, there are even more books waiting to be read. I have a pile of four black books, three from publishers and one from a giveaway: Stinkfever’s Fire by Chris Verner, Black Dog by Rachel Neumeier (thanks to Maureen of By Singing Light!), The Shadow Garden and Nightfall Gardens by Allen Houston. I also put two prepub ebooks from Edelweiss on my reader this week, The Castle Behind Thorns by Merrie Haskell and The Thickety: a Path Begins by J.A. White, because I guess I’m now the kind of book addict who needs new books on my ereader, even when I have a whole pile of print books checked out from the library. (I also need to track down the two issues of Spellbound magazine that I had on the iPad and which got lost in a system update.)

I have the following books checked out from the library not yet read: Vicious by V.A. Schwab, The Iron Jackal by Chris Wooding (these two are what happens when I think I have too many books checked out for myself to check out anymore, but then books come up that I’m interested in that I think might also appeal to my love. Then I check them out, ostensibly for him, but of course, I want to read them, too. If I can get to them.) A Kiss at Midnight and Once upon a Tower by Eloisa James for fairy-tale themed romance, and Dawn by Octavia Butler, which is the Book Smuggler’s Readalong for April, and a book by an author I’ve been meaning to get around to for several years now. And when I finish either one of my current audiobooks, my love is desperate for me to start the Velveteen series by Seanan McGuire, which he’d bought for himself.

What are you reading now?

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Fairy Tale Comics

Posted on April 4, 2014 by Katy K.

We’d very much enjoyed Nursery Rhyme Comics when we got it, so of course we wanted this one as well. We had to wait for several months, as the readers before us in line apparently liked it too much to bring it back on time. It was worth the wait!

Fairy Tale ComicsFairy Tale Comics edited by Chris Duffy. First Second, 2013.
This is a collection of fairy tales, each done by a different renowned graphic novel artist or illustrator, including lots of familiar names: Raina Telgemeier of Smile; Vanessa Davis, familiar to me for her adult memoirs in graphic form; Jillian Tamaki of Skim and This One Summer; Craig Thompson of Blankets; Brett Helquist of the Series of Unfortunate Events; the Hernandez brothers of the Love and Rockets series; and many, many more. It’s a relatively short book, so I wasn’t surprised that the fairy tales are given treatments meant to fit in. Stories that usually involve three trials or nights are cut down to one, and so on. I was pleased to see a nice assortment of tales, including standards such as “Rapunzel”, “Snow White”, “Puss in Boots” and “Rumplestiltskin”, as well as less familiar stories like “The Prince and the Tortoise”, “The Boy Who Drew Cats”, and “Azzolino’s Story Without End.” Having so many artists, all with very different styles, makes each story stand out in its own way, from the scratchy informality of Charise Mericle Harper’s “The Small-Toothed Dog” to the classic Sunday serial style of Ramona Fradon’s “The Prince and the Tortoise” and the lovely Russian folk art look of Jillian Tamaki’s “Baba Yaga”.

My daughter’s favorite was Raina Telgemeier’s “Rapunzel”, which she wanted read to her at least once a day for six weeks, and just took it home from the library again the last time we were there. Telgemeier puts a lot of her signature humor into the story, from the list of other obscure foods that the man has already gotten to satisfy his wife’s cravings, to the small detail of the prince’s tongue sticking out with the effort of climbing up Rapunzel’s hair. But she’s also altered the ending (somewhat reminiscent of Rapunzel’s Revenge) in a way that makes Rapunzel much less passive than she’s typically shown. My son loved Emily Carroll’s The Twelve Dancing Princesses, done in misty watercolors, and accomplishing the tricky task of telling a story in pictures including an invisible character very well. Really, every one of these stories was its own small delight worth discussing, but as that would go on for a very long time, I’ll just say that we enjoyed this very much.

One of the nice things about this way of the telling the stories is that while some of the stories are too scary for preschoolers (or at least mine), it’s usually really clear from the illustration style right at the beginning, so that it was very easy to skip to the next story. Everything looked fine for elementary school and up, though, with nothing sexual and just a couple of spooky stories. As a lover of fairy tales, I still want my children exposed to fairy tales in lots of other formats. We read them as picture books and lavishly illustrated anthologies, and I have my ereader well stocked with the colored fairy books, unillustrated, from Project Gutenberg, to read to the kids when we’re stuck waiting places. I can’t say that this would be good as a child’s only introduction to fairy tales. But as part of a good education in traditional stories, especially for children who love graphic story-telling as mine do – this is really top-notch.

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Spindle’s End, for Old School Wednesday Readalong

Posted on April 2, 2014 by Katy K.

For the first time, I’m participating in the amazing Book Smuggler’s Old School Wednesday Readalong. They’ve been doing this monthly for over a year now, and while I’ve always read them eagerly, this is the first time I was coordinated enough to get and read the book in time. It probably helped that the book was already sitting on my shelf. (I ILLed last month’s book, Kate Elliott’s Jaran, but didn’t get through it in time… I’ll get the review up hopefully this month sometime.)

Spindle's EndSpindle’s End by Robin McKinley. G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 2000.
Robin McKinley is one of my top favorite authors of all time (regular readers here will know this.) When I opened this book, I found a Borders Harry Potter tattoo clipped to the front page, and remembered finding Spindle’s End while doing the midnight Harry Potter release thing with my love. Happy memories!

I’m a re-reader, and McKinley is a go-to comfort author, but this was only the second time I’d read this book. I found plenty to enjoy about it – and my perspectives have shifted in the last 14 years – but I’d still have to say that this isn’t one of my favorite McKinley books. Now, on to the official questions! Continue reading →

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The Shadow Society

Posted on April 2, 2014 by Katy K.

I very much enjoyed Rutkoski’s Cabinet of Wonders, which is why I checked this out for teen Cybils reading, though it took me a bit to get to it.

Shadow SocietyThe Shadow Society by Marie Rutkoski. Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 2012.
Darcy’s memories of her life before she was five are very hazy. Five is when she was found abandoned outside the Firehouse in Chicago. Now in high school, she’s been kicked out of one foster family after another, despite her best efforts to fit in. The arrival of Conn, a Mysterious and Compellingly Handsome, yet Irritating new boy at her high school leads to new discoveries about herself and her past. Darcy and Conn travel to an alternate dimension, a Chicago where the Great Fire never happened, and where Darcy is liable to be killed on sight.

I’m being deliberately vague about the plot here, because you can read about that elsewhere or in the book as you choose. This has a lot of features of your standard-issue teen dystopia, including the misunderstood teen heroine, a love triangle, forbidden romance, and of course, a messed-up system. There are enough original elements mixed in to keep it fresh and interesting, including the alternate history and Rutkoski’s refusal to completely demonize either of the two opposing sides in the alternate dimension. Darcy has to do a fair bit of thinking to figure out a world that people are telling her is more clear-cut than it is, and she also has a strong circle of friends at high school in our Chicago, so she’s not forced to be either completely self-reliant or dependent on one of her swains. Her journey from believing herself to be completely on her own and self-reliant to recognizing that she had people to count on made for a pleasant character arc. This was very happy distraction reading while waiting for a car repair to be finished.

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The Last Four Cybils Picture Books

Posted on March 31, 2014 by Katy K.

Though Cybils season is over, it took me long past the announcement of the winner to get my hands on all of the picture book finalists. Since they were all really good books, I’ll tell you about them anyway.

bearsThe Bear’s Song by Benjamin Chaud. Chronicle Kids, 2013.
From a library standpoint, this book is unfortunately annoying – its extra-tall size means that it won’t fit upright on shelves and might not get found, especially once it’s no longer on the new book shelf. The basic story is that little bear has run away, and papa bear is chasing him all through a large French city, ending at the opera house. The crowded pen drawings show lots of details, with humor for both kids and adults. It’s a puzzle to see who can find little bear hiding in the picture first – in some, we never did. The midnight blue cover didn’t attract my daughter initially, and we had it for a couple of weeks before she’d let me read it to her. Once we’d read it, though, she loved it, and asked for it repeatedly.

Open This Little BookOpen This Little Book by Jesse Klausmeier. Illustrated by Suzy Lee. Chronicle Books, 2013.
This is a nested story, short on words and high on charm. Pages cut to look like little books of ever-decreasing size tell the story of creatures of ever-increasing size opening their books, all forming a nice rectangular rainbow once opened. Both the four- and the nine-year-old succumbed to the charm, and the idea is simple enough that my daughter could and did go through it on her own over and over again.

Sophie's SongSophie’s Squash by Pat Zietlow Miller. Illustrated by Anne Wilsdorf. Schwartz and Wade Books, 2013.
Sophie falls in love with the butternut squash her family brings home from the farmer’s market. Bernice is just the right size to hold and love, and her mother kindly decides to call for pizza when she discovers that dinner has developed a personality. But what to do when Bernice develops spots and starts to get squishy? This is a traditional story, rather than a concept book like the previous two, delightfully told with both heart and humor. I especially loved Wilsdorf’s characters with their large noses and unruly hair, so much friendlier and more human than the polished digitally-made illustrations that are popular these days.

Mr. Tiger Goes WildMr. Tiger Goes Wild by Peter Brown. Little, Brown, 2013.
It’s a drab city landscape filled with animals walking upright and wearing formal 1910s clothing, all shown in grays and browns. Only Mr. Tiger is bright orange, and he is tired of wearing his stiff clothes and carrying on stiff conversations about nothing in particular with the other animals. Mr. Tiger decides that he needs to let loose a little – and then a lot. Over the course of the book, he – and eventually his friends – find a balance between wild and cultured. The message is a good one, and the build-up of all the animals in their formal attire makes the switch to otherwise unremarkably nude animals hilariously shocking. The pictures may not be as detailed as those in The Bear’s Song, but they convey an amazing amount of personality. It’s short enough for preschoolers, and funny enough for all ages.

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Idiot’s Guides: Knitting

Posted on March 29, 2014 by Katy K.

I’ve been a knitting addict for a while now, so I don’t normally check out introductory knitting guides. The KnitPicks podcast with Megan Goodacre, though, was enough to convince me that I should take a look at this one. I’m glad I did!

Idiot's Guide: KnittingIdiot’s Guides: Knitting by Megan Goodacre. Penguin Group, 2013.
Welcome, I guess, to the new Idiot’s Guide books. Not that I’ve looked at a lot of them in the past, but I have a vague memory of lots of text with some two-color line drawings. Not here! The instructions for knitting are explained in large, clear, step-by-step photographs, with the working bit of yarn highlighted red to stand out. Rather than starting with the typical scarf – which is boring and goes on way too long for a new knitter – Goodacre introduces each new skill with a tiny project, including a washcloth, coasters, a striped baby hat, leaves for shaping, a cabled headband, and a lace bookmark. The book is divided into beginning and intermediate skills, and each one includes a stitch gallery – encouraging knitters to start designing their own projects from the very beginning. The final section includes bigger projects, working up to sweaters at the very end. My favorite projects from this part included the striped baby jacket (matching the hat from the striping lesson), the simple raglan pullover, and the infinity lace scarf. (Ravelry tells me that the Friendly Critters are more popular.) It’s not surprising that it was featured on a KnitPicks podcast, as it uses KnitPicks yarn for all projects, though she describes the weight and fiber content first, so knitters can easily make their own substitutions.

There was a lot in here even for experienced knitters – it got used every time I took it to Knit Night – and even the tiny projects are charming. Even though I’ll always have a spot in my heart for the rebellious and snarky Stitch and Bitch by Debbie Stoller, this book will probably now be my go-to book to recommend to would-be knitters, as well as a handy reference for any knitter.

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Prince Caspian

Posted on March 26, 2014 by Katy K.

Prince CaspianPrince Caspian by C.S. Lewis. Read by Lynn Redgrave. Originally published by Geoffrey Bless, 1951. Recording from HarperTrophy, 2003.
Moving on with my listening to Narnia with the Boy, we come to Prince Caspian, my childhood favorite of the series, though I couldn’t say why. Maybe the lovely setting, in Narnian summer, and the romance of the deposed boy king trying to regain his throne?

Going back to it now, I still enjoyed it. I could perhaps wish that Lucy wasn’t quite so consistently upstanding, and that Susan was less of a wet blanket – really, especially as a person very often responsible for making sure that all the practical details are taken care of, I don’t appreciate Lewis making the character who attends to such details here so petty. But I still love Caspian’s journey through hidden Old Narnia meeting people, watching the Pevensies trying to meld their school selves and their old royal characters, and especially Lucy’s midnight dance with the trees. Here the difference between my tastes and my son’s show up – it turns out that he reads for plot, and expressed frustration at all of the descriptive passages where nothing happens. I had to tell him that Lewis’s ability to bring a strange landscape to life was one of his strong points as a writer, part of why I love his books so much. That probably won’t change his reading preference in the long term, though it introduced a libarianly discussion of appeal factors. The incident with Trumpkin and Aslan at the end also had me explaining the relevant bit of Christian theology, just so it would make sense. Religiously, it felt like a meditation on faith in Aslan in general and in a higher purpose in general, without such things getting in the way of a good story. The boy very much enjoyed the story, in spite of the complaints and the small bits that needed explaining. I’m pretty sure the battle scenes and the single combat were his favorites.

So far, the Narnia books have all been narrated by different people. I’ve yet to listen to one either that I hated or that I really felt did the story justice. Lynn Redgrave sounds like a mature woman with a slightly rough voice, more of Grandma reading the book than trying to bring it to life. I had no complaints with her accent, but her children all sounded a bit too young, still with oddly rough voices themselves. Sigh. Also, we’re having to wait on hold for each of the sequels, and had just started a second book-while-waiting when Dawn Treader came in. I’m not fussed about this – the stories aren’t so closely linked as to make it necessary to remember every detail from one book to the next, and we won’t get series fatigue the way we theoretically might from spending months on end on just one series.

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Bookish Bucket List for Top 10 Tuesday

Posted on March 25, 2014 by Katy K.

Top Ten TuesdayHere are book-related dreams, both likely and not, in the order in which they’re occurring to me, inspiration provided by the good people at the Broke and the Bookish for Top Ten Tuesday.

  • Catch up with all the authors and series I like and have fallen behind on.
  • Also catch up and stay caught up with my review writing.
  • Actually have time to read all the books that I hear about and want to. Right now, still hoping to get to the Sarah Zettel book I was given for my birthday in December.
  • Meet some of my favorite authors – right now Robin McKinley, Maggie Stiefvater, and Stephanie Pearl-McPhee would top that list.
  • Go to a sci-fi con. The local ones, where we have friends, would be lovely, though I hear BosCon is going to be extra-cool next year (see previous item.)
  • Go to Kid Lit Con, so I can meet my favorite book bloggers in person.
  • Read Robin McKinley and L.M. Montgomery to my children.
  • Be a Cybils judge.
  • Catalog Have my son catalog our home library (being hopeful here).
  • Build a secret passage bookcase in our house, such as those pictured here at Bookriot, or the one below from the hiddenbookcasedoors tumblr

    • secretbookcase

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