Customer Reviews

Rapunzel's Revenge

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Who knew Rapunzel had it in her? All those years spent locked away in that tower, waiting for some handsome young prince to come along and rescue her --- wait, she didn't need a man to get out of that predicament?

It turns out Rapunzel was actually a kick-butt heroine who had a feisty temperament and tenacity --- or at least that's how a trio of Hales have envisioned her. Shannon Hale, a Newbery Award-winning children's book author, has teamed up with her husband, Dean, to write RAPUNZEL'S REVENGE, which turns the original Brothers Grimm tale on its ear. They brought in the help of talented illustrator Nathan Hale (no relation) for help fleshing out the story.

RAPUNZEL'S REVENGE offers a thrilling reimagining of the fairy tale --- just look at the cover to see Rapunzel looking like she's straight out of the wild west. Inside, she's thrown into even more outrageous settings, all of which work somehow --- and it succeeds because of its unabashed spirit. The Hales seem like they're having a ball with this story, and they like to mix in generous helpings of other myths and legends to flesh out the action. (Also, a couple of other fairy tales find their way into the telling of RAPUNZEL'S REVENGE, but it would take an evil stepmother to give them away here.)

RAPUNZEL'S REVENGE sticks fairly close to the original at the beginning. Rapunzel is a young girl living with Mother Gothel, who rules over the land with an iron fist (and a little bit of witchcraft). They live in luxury (or boredom, to hear Rapunzel tell it), with Rapunzel having no idea what lies over the giant wall surrounding their castle. When she dares to spy over it one day, and finally meets her real mother living in poverty on the other side, she incurs the wrath of Mother Gothel and gets locked away in a small room at the top of a very tall tree.

When her hair begins to grow excessively long, Rapunzel formulates a plan. With a clever guile, she learns how to use her hair like a rope, rappelling out of the tree and into the wild forest around her. And here's where the adventure truly begins (as Rapunzel herself puts it in her narration, "This is where the `once upon a time' part ends."). And what an adventure it is. When Rapunzel meets up with a young scallywag named Jack, things really pick up. Both are on the run: Jack is a horse thief, and Gothel has put a price on Rapunzel's head. To make things worse, Gothel has locked up Rapunzel's birth mother, and Rapunzel is bound and determined to get back to the castle to rescue her mother and overthrow Gothel for good.

Luckily for readers, RAPUNZEL'S REVENGE is as clever as it is good-humored. The plot never rests for too long, keeping our two intrepid heroes constantly moving and always in some spot of trouble that takes all their wits to escape. Mining the depths of fairy tales provides a wealth of material, and giving this one a modern-day twist adds layers of personality to the mix. Believe it or not, this Rapunzel is so much more interesting to read about than what the Brothers Grimm offered.

--- Reviewed by John Hogan

This is a graphic novel in the truest sense of the word, a done-in-one novel length comic book. It's intended for, and marketed to, the middle reader set (ages 9 to 12), but it's just as suitable for young adults and adults alike.

Rapunzel's Revenge takes place in a fairy-tale-version of the American west, in which standard fairy tale tropes are recast in western idioms. The main character is Rapunzel, a young girl raised in a well-guarded villa by a woman she thinks is her mother. When Rapunzel learns that the woman is in fact an evil sorceress who rules the land with an iron fist, she tries to escape, only to end up imprisoned in a high tower, her hair cursed to grow endlessly. But rather than waiting for any handsome prince to come along and rescue her, Rapunzel simply braids her hair into two long rope-like braids, frees herself, and then using her braids as lariats and whips sets out to end the sorceress's rule once and for all. She meets up with a young ne'er-do-well named Jack, who is down on his luck until his pet goose finally lays an egg, and together they travel across the deserts and forests, having adventures. Highly recommended.

A popular novelist may be prone to looking at the whole of their oeuvre. They consider their past works, look to the future, and decide to write a graphic novel. What makes them do this? Is it the potential to reach whole new audiences? Is it the accessibility of the format? The trendiness of it all? Or it is something else? Could it be that graphic novels are the wave of the future? Could be. Certainly they offer an author a whole new way of looking at the literary format. Why an enterprising young man or woman - and man, could perhaps even take a fairy tale and do wondrous things with it. You could even, and maybe I'm just talking crazy stuff here, take the fairy tale of Rapunzel, slap it into a pseudo-cowboy/wizardry setting. Add in Newbery-Honor winner Shannon Hale, her husband, and a guy with the same last name who doesn't happen to be related to either of them, and you have a rip-roaring tale of betrayal, escape, romance, and very long locks. Hypothetically, of course.

First things first. You are all familiar with the story of Rapunzel I assume, yes? Witch takes neighbor's baby after the husband steals some of the rapunzel plant for his wife to eat. Witch keeps kid up a tower until the child's hair grows long and she is eventually rescued by a prince. It's all pretty basic stuff. Well that's sort of the true story, but not exactly. For most of Rapunzel's life she's actually kept in a lovely castle with the woman she thinks is her mother, learning rope tricks from the guards and generally having a good time. One day the girl grows inordinately curious about the tall wall that surrounds her home and so she scales it. Consequently, what she sees from the top causes her to question everything about her life. As punishment for this act of rebelliousness Rapunzel is kept in the hollow of a tall tree where her hair grows at an inordinate rate. Each year her "mother" asks if she's ready to be forgiven and each year Rapunzel stays the same. When she finally breaks out of her treetop prison she joins forces with a boy named Jack and the two of them set out to break the power of her "mother" and save the hardscrabble land around them.

Rapunzel is one of those fairy tale characters that remain both iconic and relatively unblemished. Disney never did a thing with Rapunzel, after all. When you think of her, you mind may refer to Paul O. Zelinsky's Caldecott winning picture book or other images of her in literature. From a personal viewpoint, my first reference tends to be the Rapunzel character in Stephen Sondheim's musical Into the Woods. But where Sondheim played up the mother/daughter aspects of the relationship, Hale n' Hale are not particularly interested in that take on the story. Here Mother Gothel, as she is known, is a pretty unrepentantly evil character. She bears little affection for the girl she has raised, which I think is a bit of a loss. It would have been nice to see a more complex villain. Someone who can care and love a little girl on the one hand as a mother, and then turn around and crush the spirit of a nation on the other.

That said, the Hales have a good sense of character and personality here. Rapunzel's spirit is pretty evident, both visually and through her verve and words right from the get go. Heck, the first time you see her she's hanging off a branch in the garden and falling into a small pond. The Hales avoid the usual tomboy-told-to-act-like-a-pretty-princess storyline that's been so done and overdone before. Here Rapunzel is brave and curious right from the start, but with a way of communicating that is entirely her own. After all, when she first sees the devastation that surrounds her home of the past nine years her response is "Well I'll be swigger-jiggered and hung out to dry."

The cowboy feel and characters in this book are a bit odd, but they work within the context of the tale. It's certainly a more American take on the Rapunzel story than you'll usually find in a library. All spurs and lassos and riding bucks. Short of Indian attacks (of which there are blessedly none) all the usual tropes are there.

Nathan Hale was an interesting choice of illustrator for this particular outing. It took me a while to get attuned to his more cartoonish style, I admit. I had seen the work he'd done on his picture books Yellowbelly and Plum Go to School, which employed a mighty realistic take on your average everyday six-year-old monsters. For this book, Hale scales back the complexity (at least until he needs to use it) producing a simpler product. Once you get into it, it kinda works. I liked Hale's ability to render the multiple uses of extremely long hair during the Rapunzel-grows-up montages. I liked that he was as comfortable presenting a grey desolate wasteland as we was a beautiful ball gown. If I'm not too much mistaken there seemed to be a visual Pippi Longstocking reference going on for much of the book (hey man, I always said she was the original female superhero). And I liked that he ends the book (spoiler alert, for those of you who care) with a very sexy kiss. Very sexy. Or maybe I just like boys in white shirtsleeves.

It's a hard novel to place, in a way. There really aren't that many younger reader graphic novels outside of the manga sphere to compare this to. I can't help but think that it's going to have to be a hit, though. A Newbery Honor winning author taking familiar fairy tale tropes and then wrapping the whole kerschmozzle in a kick-butt girl package? It's going to have its fans. My only difficulty as a librarian is in figuring out what to recommend to my patrons when they finish the book and want more of the same. Suggestions on that topic are more than welcome. A fun new book worth taking a gander at.

Every so often a book comes along that crosses boundaries, and this graphic novel should appeal to the young, the old, girls, boys, and, unless a true snob, it should even appeal to those who don't usually like comix. Unlike some, I've been reading science fiction, horror, adventure, and mystery stories for over forty years, so the mixing of the western, fantasy, and fairy-tale genres didn't bother me, it just enhanced the story.

This review may contain spoilers, but everything important happens within the first twenty pages anyway, so this review shouldn't spoil much. This modern retelling of an old fairy tale is reset in an alternate universe of our old American west. The story starts off with the Hales painting an idyllic picture, literally and figuratively, of the young redheaded Rapunzel and her life in Mother Gothel's huge hacienda where everybody is nice to her. However, she is also having troublesome dreams of being part of a family that she barely remembers.

Unfortunately, Rapunzel is just an average girl and she rebels against being cloistered in Gothel's hacienda. In an act of rebellion on her twelfth birthday, Rapunzel escapes from Mother Gothel's place and discovers what Mother Gothel's kingdom is really like and who her real mother is.

This angers Gothel and Rapunzel is then taken by the thuggish Brute to Gothel's swamps and is placed in a tree hollow where she stays until she is sixteen. At that time Rapunzel is given a choice by Gothel to either be an obedient girl or stay in the tree. Rapunzel denies Gothel, and is punished by being abandoned forever, and left in the tree. During her stay in the tree, Rapunzel's hair has grown ridiculously long and she has learned how to use her (braided) hair like either a rope or a whip along with keeping herself in really good physical shape.

After being abandoned, Rapunzel uses her hair to escape her prison, and then starts on her way back to Mother Gothel's hacienda to rescue her mother. Along the way, she teams-up with (rescues) a young drifter named Jack and his pet goose and in a rocky partnership decide to continue Rapunzel's quest, in which they meet, and beat, villains, kidnappers, backstabbers, and wild beasts, all the while being hunted by Brute.

The novel is episodic, with the episodes dealing with Rapunzel and Jack saving a starving village from wild dogs, and the one with them saving a community of river small-people from a huge river monster being particularly good. Love that giant snake. Through trials and tribulations Rapunzel and Jack end up at Mother Gothel's hacienda during a celebration and the big showdown begins.

All things being fair though, this is a young girl's book, and Jack is always subservient to Rapunzel, usually because she's a real tuff girl, a kind of young female Indiana Jones. However, in the end, both Rapunzel and Jack are written well, as is Mother Gothel as a villain. Despite being episodic, the story flows well, and while not too violent, it doesn't scrimp with the action, and there are things buried in the story that will appeal to older readers.

Nathan Hale's artwork is at times plain, and at times detailed, and always distinctive, Hale's artwork, like the story also flows nicely, and never gets in the way of the story, and there are some splash pages that are just beautifully rendered. This adventure quest is filled with action, likable characters, magic, fantasy, self-sacrifice, humor, heroism, and loyal friendship. While this fast-paced adventure graphic novel may be aimed at young girls, most boys should enjoy it also, and it never talks down to, or patronizes its audience. I've already read it several times, and this may be one of the best family oriented books of the year. But then, I'm not a father, just a lover of good stories, and this review is from that viewpoint, and I hope this review helps.

I'm a fan of Shannon Hale's novels, and I too was surprised that this is in a "comic book" format. Wow! The story is well-told, but my kudos go to the illustrator Nathan Hale. I had to read this twice in succession -- first to enjoy the plot, but the second time to look closely at every picture. The pictures make the text even more ironic and witty, and there are little themes in the pictures alone (watch the goose, for example). I feel silly sometimes for reading "kid's books", but this was so classy I plan to share with friends.

I loved this book!! Being mother of 4 and loving the Young Adult books that Hale so beautifully writes, I was just excited for her next book. Then I got it in the mail and saw that it was a comic book! I was so surprised, but very happy. I sat down and started reading with my 8 year old daughter and my 6 year old son. They LOVED IT! I would find them reading it in their rooms when they were supposed to be doing chores, sneaking it outside, and hiding in our 'library' with it in their laps and noses burried deep. How can you say 'no' to a clean, witty, action/adventure that keeps the kids' attention? A must for family readers!

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).

Once upon a time, in a land very far away, there lived a girl with her mother. Every day as the girl grew and played, she also became more and more curious about the world outside. One day she finally climbed up her wall and discovered that she really knew nothing at all.

And that was when she decided to do something about it.

Think you know Rapunzel? You've never heard it like this!

With a feisty heroine who uses her ridiculously long hair as a weapon and a sidekick who travels with a goose that just might lay a golden egg, RAPUNZEL'S REVENGE takes the traditional tale of Rapunzel and turns it on its head.

Shannon and Dean Hale create a thoroughly entertaining world in which Rapunzel takes claims her life as her own. Follow along as she embarks on a swashbuckling quest to save the world from the evil witch who has held her captive in a move that sets the bar for adventurous heroines everywhere.

Be forewarned: RAPUNZEL'S REVENGE is not for everyone. It is a graphic novel, and while the illustrations are gorgeous and highly amusing, some readers may not be drawn in by the format. However, for those who love graphic novels, fairy tales, and awesome heroines, this story may be just the thing.

Happy reading.

Reviewed by: Rebecca Wells

This illustrated retelling of the famous fairy tale is a load of fun, particularly because the heroine, Rapunzel--or Punzie, as Jack of Beanstalk fame calls her--is so likable. She's spunky, energetic, forthright, brave, strong, and full of heart. There is definitely a feministic sensibility in how capable our gal is portrayed.

In this retelling, the witch has growth magic, and the tower in which our heroine is imprisoned is actually a growing thing--a cross between a tree and a giant bulb. But Punzie will not be cowed. She devises an escape and is determined to free her mother from bleak servitude and punish Mother Gothel for her wicked ways. Punzie ends up partnering with mischievous, gold-loving, wayward, amusing, and somewhat less than perfect Jack and his magic goose, getting into all sorts of trouble while traversing the land damaged by the tyrannical use of power by Mother Gothel (aka the witch).

The art, while serving the tale well, slips into the too-simply-drawn at times, but overall is enjoyable. I like that it brings the magic to life well in certain points of the story.

Hale, who did a great job retelling the Goose Girl's tale, does a great job again of adding to classic storytelling. Her explanation for the tower and the use she puts the long hair to is a delight. There are moments of genuine laugh out loud humor, too. (The pick of picks had me guffawing!)

I bought this for my 10 year old niece, but I enjoyed it and I'm 49. This is a romping fun and charming fairy tale retold. I recommend it for all lovers of folklore and comic book readers young at heart. And it would make a great gift for a young girl in your family, because it shows a heroine can be loyal and good and moral and caring and also be strong and righteously indignant and muscular and "the boss." :)

After purchasing this graphic novel for myself, I decided to purchase it for all of my friends for Christmas (not because there is anything particularly Christmasy about it, but because it is an awesome gift!). I have always loved fairytales, especially Rapunzel. but I appreciate the modern approach of having the "damsel" not exactly always a "damsel-in-distress". Half the young girls I know/have known have fantasized about having really long hair - and what better use for it, than as a weapon to fight injustice? The graphics are wonderful and the story is humorous and inventive. My friend's little girl keeps getting this from the library, because she loves the heroine and how brave and tough, yet adorable she is. This is a fun twist on a fairytale, as well as a western-tale, and a comic book superhero tale. I feel that it is written for a young adult-level audience, but younger kids can enjoy the pictures and the basic story, and older "kids" can admire and enjoy the whole package.