Off Topic: Gold Box Deal of the Day: 50% Off Select Melissa & Doug Preschool Toys

Melissa & Doug Abby & Emma Deluxe Magnetic Dress-Up

Okay, this is not fairy tale related, but I wanted to share because I love these toys as gifts and toys for my own house, especially the wooden foods.  Amazon is offering today only, Gold Box Deal of the Day: 50% Off Select Melissa & Doug Preschool Toys. The emphasis is on the wooden toys, not the plush.

Here are some images of the toys, but use the link above to get the half price deals.  These link to the regularly priced toys. (Well, some do, some don't.  Use the link if you're not sure. Also, I'm not linking to all the options, just some personal faves.)

Melissa & Doug Wooden Shape Sorting Clock

Melissa & Doug Wooden Sandwich-Making Set

Melissa & Doug Cutting Food Box

Melissa & Doug Food Groups

Melissa & Doug Wooden Sushi

Melissa & Doug Playtime Veggies

I have had great success using toy vegetables when retelling Stone Soup to groups. Distributing the vegetables is always a bit hit when the kids get to put the veggies in the pot.  Love!

However, not included in the sale, but my favorite ever Melissa & Doug is this dragon. One of my nieces named mine Stiles. (After her doctor, believe it or not, and she loves this dragon.)

Rapunzel by Adelaide Crapsey

Rapunzel Stargazing by Tracy Bishop

Rapunzel

by Adelaide Crapsey

(1878–1914)

All day, all day I brush

My golden strands of hair;

All day I wait and wait...

Ah, who is there?

Who calls? Who calls? The gold

Ladder of my long hair

I loose and wait... and wait...

Ah, who is there?

She left at dawn. . I am blind

In the tangle of my long hair...

Is it she? the witch? the witch?

Ah, who is there?

from Verse (1915)

I. Rapunzel Love and Hate by J.L.M.

Rapunzel illustration idea

by ArtByManon

It's finally here.  Today I will be sharing your Rapunzel Love and Hate thoughts, one scheduled to post each hour starting at 9 AM CST.  I received 8 entries overall and had three randomly picked by Random.org to choose who would receive the three copies of Rapunzel and Other Maiden in the Tower Tales From Around the World. The numbers were 2, 5 and 7 (II, V, & VII). So stay tuned today to see who submitted those entries. I'll also be emailing the winners to request mailing addresses.  For the other five entrants, you will receive double entries in the contest coming up at the end of the month to celebrate SurLaLune's 12th anniversary.

Now here's part I. by J.L.M.

My earliest memory of Rapunzel is from Faerie Tale Theatre. My cousin Lesley and I watched it on Laserdisc (we also had this two-sides Laserdisc copy of Jim Henson's Hey Cinderella and the Frog Prince; you could flip the laserdisc and watch one or the other). This was in the early to mid 1980s I believe.



I remember them describing different ways Rapunzel's mother would eat the radishes stolen from the witch's garden, but the only specific thing I remember was something like, "she ate them with chocolate fondue." Lesley and I had no idea what that was, but it must have caught both our imaginations, because the next time we made mud pies we called it "chocolate fondue."


Later, in elementary school, I checked out a picture book adaptation of Rapunzel. It was very ornately illustrated. I remember the prince being blinded by thorns when the witch tricked him into climbing the tower then let him fall. I must have been in about 4th grade, but I felt truly moved when he somehow found Rapunzel and their children after years of wandering through a desert. Rapzunel's tears brought back his sight. Something about that final scene in the book made an impression on me. Maybe because of the prince's long journey to find someone he already knew and loved....as opposed to the Disney movies where everyone was just in love automatically, and finding the princess was never a years-long search.


I guess what moved me even at that young age was the sincerity of that particular telling of the story; the prince's devotion, the transformative power of Love (tears of joy wiping away the witch's curse of blindness) in that desert.

by J.L.M.

Rapunzel in Advertising

I've offered many Rapunzel ads in the past and decided not to repeat those.  You can find them by clicking the Rapunzel or Advertising tags on the left hand of the blog.  The following I haven't shared before:

Burger King: Rapunzel

Advertising School: Miami Ad School/ESPM Sao Paulo, Brazil

Copywriter: Renato Maroni

Art Director: Rafael Voltolino

Illustrator: Edson Yamasaki

From adsoftheworld (appears to be a classroom project, not a real campaign)

 Calgary International Film Festival: Rapunzel

Advertising Agency: Wax, Calgary, Canada

Creative Director: Joe Hospodarec

Art Director: Joel Arbez

Copywriters: Saro Ghazarian, Sebastian Wilcox

Illustrator: Kim Smith

From adsoftheworld

Lux: Strengthen your hair

Advertising Agency: JWT, Beijing, China

Creative Directors: Jordan Hsueh, Sun ShanKun

Art Director: Chris Yan

Copywriter: Wang Su

Released: 2008

From adsoftheworld

Rush: Rapunzel

Agency: De Pasquale, Australia

Writers: Grant Johnston & Cos Luccitti

Art Director: Grant Johnston

Photographer: Andreas Smetana

Producer: Ellie Smidt

From adsoftheworld

This one was an exhibition project by Martijn, not a real campaign, also found on adsoftheworld:

More Finger Puppets

Cinderella Finger Puppet Set (7 Finger Puppets)

Okay, my weakness for puppets, especially finger puppets has long been established and well-known by you long-term readers. I just discovered these out of the UK and I want, but I don't need.  For now, we'll just enjoy. I like that these are little dolls with wooden heads (mostly).  I like the intimacy of finger puppets and storytelling.  These are some of the best I've seen, especially since Manhattan Toy discontinued their series many years ago now.

Little Red Riding Hood Finger Puppet Set (4 Finger Puppets)

Sleeping Beauty Finger Puppet Set (6 Finger Puppets)

Jack & the Beanstalk Finger Puppet Set (4 Finger Puppets & Fabric Beanstalk)

Goldilocks & the Three Bears Finger Puppet Set (4 Finger Puppets)

Three Little Pigs Finger Puppet Set (4 Finger Puppets)

Nursery Rhymes Finger Puppet Set (6 Finger Puppets)

Rapunzel's Hair as Tool, Very Brief

 

Speaking of Rapunzels related to Tangled, it's fascinating to me that not too many Rapunzels use their hair for feats of derring-do and adventure.  I think Rapunzel has been so locked in that tower and thus in our minds as a prisoner that she has seldom been empowered by the possibilities of her hair beyond climbing mechanism. 

That is what makes Shannon Hale and Dean Hale's Rapunzel's Revenge and Calamity Jack such fun books, for Rapunzel uses her hair for empowerment.  These are recent books and quite fun, of course. And let me say I can already imagine the papers on the Tangled Rapunzel's usage of her hair (and that frying pan!) as well as Rapunzel's Revenge usage of hair as post-feminist representations of women's objects (the frying pan stereotype) and body parts as tools of power instead of subjugation. If you are a student, feel free to use the topic, I don't plan to ever use it again!  And don't forget to discuss, red and blonde vs. plain old brown!

Or you can just read the graphic novels and have a grand old time.  Either way, beware the urge to let your hair grow longer...

And while we're here, I'm writing this late at night for the morning and can't think of other Rapunzels who do use their hair as weapons and tools of empowerment.  Add to the list in the comments and remind me of what I am forgetting!  Besides the many advertisements using Rapunzel to sell things.  There have been several of those.

(I'm not going to go back and count the exclamation points in this post.  It'll just depress me!)

Rapunzel Week: Petrosinella: A Neopolitan Rapunzel retold and illustrated by Diane Stanley

Petrosinella: A Neopolitan Rapunzel retold and illustrated by Diane Stanley is another great Rapunzel picture book.  Of course, this one is based on the older Italian variant of the tale by Giambattista Basile.  Again, this book is now out of print but available used online or through your closest library (interlibrary loan is your friend!).

You can read a version of the tale online at Petrosinella.  (It is also in my book Rapunzel and Other Maiden in the Tower Tales From Around the World.)

This is one of my favorite variants of the tale because Petrosinella and the prince are witty enough to escape the witch without the long separation and injuries of the more familiar version from the Grimms.  Our heroine was made much more helpless and naive in the later French and German versions.  In other words, when she is Petrosinella, she is spunky.  In that way, Petrosinella is the closest relative to the Tangled Rapunzel who is quite spunky herself. Of course, she uses magical acorns to fashion her escape, but she engineers it and spares herself quite a bit of pain and suffering.  Who knew that one of the oldest Rapunzels would be so closely related to one of the newest?

Rapunzel Week: Rapunzel by Rogasky and Hyman

Rapunzel by Barbara Rogasky and illustrated by the late, great Trina Schart Hyman is another of my top Rapunzel picture book favorites.  Unfortunately, since Hyman's untimely death to cancer, her books are starting to go out of print, as is this one. Hyman had a highly romantic flavor and yet realistic tone to her illustrations which works especially well with Rapunzel.  Fortunately, the internet (and many libraries) make it possible to see this anyway.

Here are a few more illustrations:

I'm so glad I own this one...it is just as lovely as Zelinsky's but completely different.