Rapunzel's Revenge

Hale, Shannon and Dean Hale.  Rapunzel’s Revenge.  Illus. Nathan Hale.  New York: Bloomsbury U.S.A Children’s Books, 2008.  Print.

Awards

2009 YALSA Great Graphic Novels for Teens

2009 ALA Notable Children's Books

2009 ALA Popular Paperback

2009 Leah Adezio Award for Best Kid-Friendly Work

2010 ALA Amelia Bloomer Project Bibliography List

2011 Pacific Northwest Library Association Young Readers Choice Award

Utah Book Award for Children’s Literature

Cybil Award

Annotation

Rapunzel, along with her sidekick Jack, wants to free her mother and the townspeople of Gothel’s Reach from being under the control of evil Mother Gothel.

Booktalk

Rapunzel grows up inside Mother Gothel’s villa where there’s always food to eat and the garden is always green.  Curious about the outside world, though, Rapunzel decides to climb over the wall that guards her home and is shocked by what she sees.  Being on the outside reveals to Rapunzel Gothel’s evil ways: how she is starving the townspeople by drying up all their land and how she stole Rapunzel from her real mother years ago as punishment for a crime committed by her father.  In a race against time Rapunzel and a friend she meets along the way, Jack, are now on a mission to destroy Gothel and free everyone from the clutches of her evil magic. 

Gothel is powerful though and she has growth magic on her side.  Will Rapunzel and Jack be able to fight off her and her henchmen?  Will they be able to get to Gothel’s villa in time before she hurts Rapunzel’s mother?  And most importantly, will they be able to survive the journey to the villa, first having to fight off “a rampaging boar…a pack of outlaw kidnappers…a horde of blood-hungry coyotes…a sea serpent…[and] Tina’s Terrible Trio”?

If Rapunzel and Jack can’t solve the mystery and figure out where Gothel is getting all of her extraordinary power from, everyone’s lives will be in extreme danger…

Image credit:  http://www.squeetus.com/stage/books_rap.html

The House on Mango Street

Cisneros, Sandra.  The House on Mango Street.  New York: Vintage Books, 1984.  Print.

Awards

1985 Before Columbus American Book Award

Annotation

Esperanza describes growing up in a Latino section of Chicago and living in a run-down house on Mango Street, while hoping and working hard to have a better life.

Booktalk

What would you do if you felt you were trapped by the place where you living?  If you wanted a real house, but got a temporary one instead?  If you felt like you were “a red balloon, a balloon tied to an anchor”?  Esperanza feels like Mango Street is holding her back.  She doesn’t have a best friend, she only has her sister Nenny but she’s annoying most of the time.  She doesn’t have a real house, the kind her family always dreamed of buying with a staircase on the inside.  Instead, she has the small red one on Mango Street where the bricks are crumbling and the front door sticks.  She wants new shoes; she wants a new name; and later, she wants a new job.  Despite all of this, Esperanza knows that the street is teaching her valuable lessons and it is in this house that she transforms from a little girl into a woman. 

Different from other novels, Esperanza tells her growing-up tale in The House on Mango Street in short chapters, or vignettes, each one their own complete story.  Take the journey along with her and find out if she ever leaves that little, red, falling-apart house behind, trading it in for a dream home: “quiet as snow, a space for [her]self to go, clean as paper before the poem”.

Image credit:  http://www.sandracisneros.com/major_works.php?work=house