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Rapunzel is a children's picture book adopted by American author and illustrator Paul O. Zelinsky. Rapunzel was published by Dutton Press in 1997, it was the recipient of the Caldecott Medal for illustration in 1998.

The story is a retelling of the original Grimm brothers' 1812 version, which leaves in details not present in later versions, such as Rapunzel giving birth to twins by the prince.

Description
Rapunzel is a small format book measuring 9 x 0.1 x 12 inches (23 cm x 30 cm).

Paul O. Zelinsky took 3 years to complete this book in its entirety. He states, "I found that Rapunzel was an even more ambitious project than I knew at the beginning"

Plot
A couple who are happily married are expecting a baby girl. The husband steals an herb called Rapunzel from the garden next to them, which is owned by a sorceress, in order to please his wife's craving. The husband is caught in the act by the sorceress, and is told to give up his baby he is expecting in exchange for sparing his life. The sorceress names the newborn baby Rapunzel and thus begins the story of Rapunzel.

Development
At New Trier High School, Zelinsky was interested in natural history as well as architecture and saw himself following one of those paths for a career. However, he went to study at Yale. He took a class taught by Maurice Sendak on the history and art of children's books, and it inspired him to a career in the area. Zelinsky went to graduate school at the Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia and Rome. The Renaissance and Italian art always fascinated him, and this time in his life influenced this love as well. His career in children's books began in 1978 with the illustrations for Avi's Emily Upham's Revenge.

Zelinsky states that he never had a clear reason how Rapunzel chose him, but that he had an older sister who had very long hair like Rapunzel He took inspiration from Giovanni Bellini for his illustration which is why the book has a Renaissance setting. And in order to create his characters he used his family's photos.

The book was written before it had any illustration, so Zelinsky used the words in order to create his paintings. He says, "I want to feel like the illustration springs from the words...to make sure that the pictures express what the book is really about"

In order to imply that Rapunzel was pregnant, Zelinsky painted her in a very formfitting dress and used the same text from the beginning of the book that described the mother's pregnancy to describe Rapunzel.

Zelinsky even grew his own Rampion Bellflower or Campanula rapunculus in order to illustrate the Rapunzel herb in his book. He kept the German name "Rapunzel", instead of the English name "Rampion".

Adaptations
According to the article Rapunzel, the story Rapunzel was first written by Friedrich Schulz and published in 1790. The Schulz version is based on Persinette by Charlotte-Rose de Caumont de La Force originally published in 1698 which in turn was influenced by an even earlier tale, Petrosinella by Giambattista Basile, published in 1634. Its plot has been used and parodied in various media and its best known line ("Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair") is an idiom of popular culture. In volume I of the 1812 annotations (Anhang), it is listed as coming from Friedrich Schulz Kleine Romane, Book 5, pp. 269–288, published in Leipzig 1790.

The Grimm Brothers' story is an adaptation of the fairy tale by Friedrich Schulz in which Paul O. Zelinsky adapted his fairy tale from.

Critical Reception
Rapunzel received favorable reviews including Kirkus Reviews describing it as "grandly evocative" and "executed with superb technical and emotional command" and the International Reading Association found it to be "compelling" and the illustration to be "the real strength of this book"

The interplay of illustration and writing is what contributed to Rapunzel winning the Caldecott medal.