Rapunzel’s Revenge by Shannon and Dean Hale, illustrated by Nathan Hale
Published : August 2008, Bloomsbury USA Children’s Books
From the cover:
Once upon a time, in a land you only think you know, lived a little girl and her mother…or the person she thought was her mother.
Every day, when the girl played in her grand villa and lush garden, she grew more curious about what lay on the other side of the ridiculosly huge garden wall. Year after year, things just seemed weirder and weirder, until the day she finally managed to sneak over the top of the wall and was horrified to see what lay beyond…
Newbery Honor-winning author Shannon Hale teams up with husband Dean Hale and brilliant artist Nathan Hale (no relation) to bring readers a swashbuckling and hilarious twist on the classic story. Watch as Rapunzel and her amazing hair, along with a mysterious outlaw named Jack, gallop around the wild and Western landscape, battling creatures and outrageous villains, righting wrongs, and changing their world forever.
My thoughts:
I’m not usually a graphic novel reader. I’m not sure why, I guess it’s just not a format I’m drawn to. I may have to revise that. Rapunzel’s Revenge was fun, laugh-out-loud funny and a great retelling of a classic fairytale.
I never pictured Rapunzel in the Wild West, but it certainly works in this story. She and Jack, who is famous in his own right, fight bad guys and coyotes, kill a sea serpent perform other good deeds before having the final show-down with the evil Mother Gothel.
I read this with Amber, 9, and she loved it. i could feel her excitement and everytime we had to put it down she complained. She wouldn’t read any of it on her own, though, because she didn’t want me to miss any of it. I liked that Rapunzel rescues herself, fights the bad guys, claims her own life. She’s not a princess waiting on her prince to come rescue her. She takes matters into her own more than capable hands. Of course, she does still get her happy ending. It is based on the fairytale after all.
Other information:
Shannon Hale has a webstie, squeetus.
Also, check out Nathan Hale’s Space Station Nathan.
You can purchase Rapunzel’s Revenge here
I loved your review, but I can’t say I loved the book as much as you did. Since I hate writing a review that may make people decide NOT to read the book, but I have to be honest, I left my review, but put a link to yours at the bottom so that others can see that it’s not the book, it’s me. 🙂 I hope you don’t mind. You can check mine out at:
http://ilovemybooks.blogspot.com/2009/02/rapunzels-revenge-by-shannon-and-dean.html
What are you talking about? This is a pretty good review and we definitely agreed on this book!! Rapunzel’s Revenge is definitely the stronger of the two books, but Calamity Jack is still fun!!