Rapunzel

It’s about time that Rapunzel saved herself, and in Woollvin’s sly follow-up to 2016’s Little Red, she does exactly that. Rapunzel’s hair, the witch’s gold-patterned knickers, and other unexpected treasures stand out in brilliant yellow while the rest of the scenery—Rapunzel’s tower and the stubby forest that surrounds it—is painted in blacks and grays. The witch, whose cloak sticks out from her body like it’s made of cardboard, hoists herself up the tower and into Rapunzel’s room, where she brushes her captive’s long tresses, then snips several locks “to sell for riches.” Despite the threat of a “terrible curse,” Rapunzel isn’t intimidated in the least: she finds a way to let herself out and spends hours in the forest making friends and reading How to Defeat Witches. When the witch finds a leaf in her hair Rapunzel doesn’t flinch: “The wind must have blown that in through the window,” she says coolly. Thanks to Woollvin, readers may grow up thinking this just-wicked-enough retelling is the classic one; if they ever stumble across versions with the prince, they may wonder why he was thought necessary. Ages 5–9. (Oct.)