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Caldecott Tuesday: Rapunzel
Today the library was open! Rapunzel has been acquired! And the illustrations, which are loosely based on Renaissance art - full of enclosed gardens, fluttering draperies, golden light - are simply gorgeous, A++ would give a Caldecott again.
In fact, Paul O. Zelinsky won the Caldecott Honor a number of times before he nabbed the big award itself. Perhaps once I finish reading all the Caldecotts proper, I should go back and check out his other work. Picture Book Monday will live on!
As much as I enjoyed the illustrations, however, I think my favorite part of this book was the author's note, which traces the history of the Rapunzel story, which was published first in seventeenth century Italy - and then in eighteenth century France - and then in Leipzig, in German, and finally in the Brothers Grimm, where they followed their usual fashion of making the story shorter & darker.
I have developed the impression that when people claim that originally fairy tales were dark, man, dark, they're actually generally referring to the Grimm versions - which weren't original at all, and were dark because the Grimm brothers always picked the darkest version they found, and darkened it up a bit more if it still wasn't dark enough for them.
Which is fine. It's a fairy tale: there is no copyright. Every generation ought to tell its fairy tales to please itself, and suit its own tastes. There's room for both darkness and light.
In fact, Paul O. Zelinsky won the Caldecott Honor a number of times before he nabbed the big award itself. Perhaps once I finish reading all the Caldecotts proper, I should go back and check out his other work. Picture Book Monday will live on!
As much as I enjoyed the illustrations, however, I think my favorite part of this book was the author's note, which traces the history of the Rapunzel story, which was published first in seventeenth century Italy - and then in eighteenth century France - and then in Leipzig, in German, and finally in the Brothers Grimm, where they followed their usual fashion of making the story shorter & darker.
I have developed the impression that when people claim that originally fairy tales were dark, man, dark, they're actually generally referring to the Grimm versions - which weren't original at all, and were dark because the Grimm brothers always picked the darkest version they found, and darkened it up a bit more if it still wasn't dark enough for them.
Which is fine. It's a fairy tale: there is no copyright. Every generation ought to tell its fairy tales to please itself, and suit its own tastes. There's room for both darkness and light.