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RAPUNZEL

RAPUNZEL Hardcover - 1997

by Zelinsky, Paul

  • Used
  • Fine
  • Hardcover
  • first

One of the most original and gifted of children's book illustrators has once again brought forth a unique vision for an age-old tale. Zelinsky's retelling of "Rapunzel" captures the possessiveness, confinement, and separation of a late 17th-century French tale by Mlle. la Force, where a mother powerfully resists her child's inevitable growth. Full color. 1998 Caldecott Award.

Description

NY: EP Dutton, 1997 Book. Fine. Hardcover. 1st Edition. Illustrated by author. Hard Cover. Fine in a Fine Dustjacket. First Edition, first printing. 40 pages, pictorial boards. A lush and unique vision of an age-old tale with art inspired by the Italian Renaissance. A gorgeous book! 1998 Caldecott Medal Winner (finally!), no award medal on dustjacket..
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Windy Hill Books specializes in out of print and collectible children's books in gift condition. Established in 1993 we have recently moved to beautiful Bath County Virginia. We are opened by appointment only.

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Details

  • Title RAPUNZEL
  • Author Zelinsky, Paul
  • Binding Hardcover
  • Edition 1st Edition
  • Condition Used - Fine
  • Pages 48
  • Volumes 1
  • Language ENG
  • Publisher NY: EP Dutton, 1997, New York
  • Date 1997-10-01
  • Illustrated Yes
  • Features Dust Cover, Illustrated
  • Bookseller's Inventory # 030219
  • ISBN 9780525456070 / 0525456074
  • Weight 1.06 lbs (0.48 kg)
  • Dimensions 12.38 x 9.32 x 0.39 in (31.45 x 23.67 x 0.99 cm)
  • Ages 06 to 09 years
  • Grade levels 1 - 4
  • Reading level 700
  • Themes
    • Cultural Region: Germany
    • Topical: Family
  • Library of Congress subjects Fairy tales, Folklore
  • Library of Congress Catalog Number 96050260
  • Dewey Decimal Code 398.209

Summary

Surely among the most original and gifted of children's book illustrators, Paul O. Zelinsky has once again with unmatched emotional authority, control of space, and narrative capability brought forth a unique vision for an age-old tale. Few artists at work today can touch the level at which his paintings tell a story and exert their hold.

Zelinsky's retelling of Rapunzel reaches back beyond the Grimms to a late-seventeenth-century French tale by Mlle. la Force, who based hers on the Neapolitan tale Petrosinella in a collection popular at the time. The artist understands the story's fundamentals to be about possessiveness, confinement, and separation, rather than about punishment and deprivation. Thus the tower the sorceress gives Rapunzel here is not a desolate, barren structure of denial but one of esoteric beauty on the outside and physical luxury within. And the world the artist creates through the elements in his paintings the palette, control of light, landscape, characters, architecture, interiors, costumes speaks to us not of an ugly witch who cruelly imprisons a beautiful young girl, but of a mother figure who powerfully resists her child's inevitable growth, and of a young woman and man who must struggle in the wilderness for the self-reliance that is the true beginning of their adulthood.

As ever, and yet always somehow in newly arresting fashion, Paul O. Zelinsky's work thrillingly shows us the events of the story while guiding us beyond them to the truths that have made it endure.

Categories

Media reviews

Citations

  • ALA Notable Children's Books, 01/01/1998, Page 1224
  • Booklist, 11/15/1997, Page 559
  • Hornbook Guide to Children, 07/01/1997, Page 115
  • Kirkus Review - Children, 10/01/1997, Page 1540
  • New York Times, 11/16/1997, Page 54
  • Publishers Weekly, 09/29/1997, Page 89
  • School Library Journal, 11/01/1997, Page 113
  • SLJ's Best Books, 12/01/1997, Page 29

About the author

Jacob Ludwig Karl, the elder of the brothers Grimm, was born in 1785, andWilhelm Karl in the following year. They both studied at Marburg, and from 1808 to 1829 mainly worked in Kassel as state-appointed librarians, Jacob also assisting in diplomatic missions between 1813 and 1815 and again in 1848. Both brothers had been professors at Gttingen for several years when in 1837 they became two of the seven leading Gttingen academics dismissed from their posts by the new King of Hanover for their liberal political views. In 1840 they were invited by Frederick William IV of Prussia to settle in Berlin as members of the Academy of Sciences, and here they remained until their deaths (Wilhelm died in 1859 and Jacob in 1863).

Paul Zelinsky was born in Evanston, Illinois. He attended Yale University, where he took a course with Maurice Sendak, which later inspired him to pursue a career in children's books. Afterwards he received a graduate degree in painting from Tyler School of Art, in Philadelphia and Rome. Paul Zelinsky lives in New York with his wife, Deborah, and the younger of their two daughters.