Module 13: Rapunzel's revenge

Book Summary: Rapunzel was always wondering what is over the huge wall.  One day, she climbs and looks over the wall only to see a desert with smoke and mines.  She gets in trouble and is sent away to be taught a lesson.  Rapunzel perseveres throughout the book and gets her happy ending.

APA Reference of Book: Hale, S., Hale, D., & Hale, N. (2008). Rapunzel's revenge. New York, N.Y.: Bloomsbury.

Impressions: I thought it was an easy book to read, and a quick one at that.  I am not a big fan of these types of books, as I like to read whole sentences and paragraphs, but I can see how maybe struggling readers would enjoy the ease of reading this book.  For me, the illustrations were too much.  They take my attention of the story and I want to examine each picture.  I would have liked this story better if it was not a graphic novel.  Definitely  my least favorite type of book of all the ones covered in this class.

Professional Review: The popular author of Princess Academy teams with her husband and illustrator Hale (no relation) for a muscular retelling of the famously long-haired heroine's story, set in a fairy-tale version of the Wild West. The Hales' Rapunzel, the narrator, lives like royalty with witchy Mother Gothel, but defies orders, scaling villa walls to see what's outside--a shocking wasteland of earth-scarring mines and smoke-billowing towers. She recognizes a mine worker from a recurrent dream: it's her birth mother, from whom she was taken as punishment for her father's theft from Mother G.'s garden. Their brief reunion sets the plot in motion. Mother G. banishes Rapunzel to a forest tree-house, checking annually for repentance, which never comes. Rapunzel uses her brick-red braids first to escape, then like Indiana Jones with his whip, to knock out the villains whom she and her new sidekick, Jack (of Beanstalk fame), encounter as they navigate hostile territory to free Rapunzel's morn from peril. Illustrator Hale's detailed, candy-colored artwork demands close viewing, as it carries the action--Rapunzel's many scrapes are nearly wordless. With its can-do heroine, witty dialogue and romantic ending, this graphic novel has something for nearly everybody. Ages 10-up.

Rapunzel's Revenge. (2008). (Book Review). Publishers Weekly, 255(31), 63.

Library Uses: I would use this book to demonstrate what a graphic novel is and then to have kids create their own.  This is a great example and I think that the kids can either write a short story and then split it up into a whole book of images, or they can go backward and do the illustrations first and then add a story to their drawings.