Monday, September 8, 2008

Rapunzel's Revenge by Shannon and Dean Hale

Rapunzel's Revenge is the graphic adaption of the story of Rapunzel. If Rapunzel was an ass-kicking gal who, instead of waiting for a prince to rescue her, just went ahead and figured she might as well rescue herself. After her daring escape Rapunzel runs into Jack, a boy disguised as a girl who needs some saving. They flee a dangerous situation together and then embark on their own set of adventures - all leading toward the ultimate goal - revenge on the witch that imprisoned Rapunzel.

The artwork is colorful, bright, and very appealing. I thought the facial expressions were especially well done. They conveyed surprise, sarcasm, mischief, etc. clearly even though they were fairly simple in construction.

It did surprise me at first how young this read. This is geared towards elementary school aged kids and for some reason I had expected it to be aimed at older readers. Once I got over that - I enjoyed it. The humor was quite sly, done with a wink. Hale takes us through different towns each with unique character and filled with unusual citizens. Not to mention creative and enjoyable town names like Last Chance and The Devil's Armpit (see a map here). They also incorporate a few other stories into the mix (with a character named Jack I'll bet you can guess one of them).

I can see young girls going crazy for this. And according to the flap they are working on a sequel.

And how cute is this - you can download Rapunzel paper dolls off of Hale's website.

2 comments:

joanna said...

You know, I was underwhelmed by this GN. It likely marks me as a meanie, but so be it. There was something about the illustrations that also didn't click with me. Perhaps it was more goofy than I anticipated.

Patti said...

I could see how that would happen - its easy to expect a lot from an author that we know can deliver.

I did enjoy it, I wasn't blown away, but I thought it was a solid GN for the younger crowd.