Rapunzel

Bethan Woollvin continues her re-appraisal of fairy tale heroines that she began with Little Red. As you might expect, this Rapunzel doesn’t sit wanly in her tower waiting for a passing prince. A pair of scissors is all she needs, luckily, the witch doesn’t miss them. Rapunzel swiftly cuts a hair ladder (rungs and all) from her glowing locks, down she goes, finds a horse in the forest to call her own and sets about revenging herself on the witch who has imprisoned her. This turns out to be surprisingly simple. It’s the scissors again, and this time the choice of a bobbed look. At an opportune moment, a good short back and sides gets rid of all that hair and witch as well. Meantime, resourceful Rapunzel has braided her own vine rope ladder and stashed it under the bed. Down she comes again, mounts her steed, and masked and caped (the horse is masked as well), off she goes to find other witches to slay. While there is nothing too surprising now in a feminist twist to fairy tales, it is Woollvin’s illustrations that make the story distinctive. These have dramatic composition, expert use of the page, sly humour, and an elegant simplicity of line and colour, mainly in monochrome but with blocks of yellow, acknowledging the central part that Rapunzel’s hair plays in the story. It’s such a beautifully realised narrative that the brief text is almost superfluous.