Letters from Rapunzel

This is Sara Lewis Holmes' debut novel, winner of the first annual Ursula Nordstrom Fiction Contest. An epistolary novel (that quickly becomes tantamount to reading a young girl's diary), it centers around twelve-year-old Cadence who calls herself Rapunzel. Cadence is extremely close to her father, a poet, who is suddenly hospital-bound with clinical depression. Soon after his hospitalization, Cadence finds an intimate and cryptic (but incomplete) letter he had written to someone nameless, addressed to a post office box. In the hopes that the recipient of the letters will help her save her father, she composes letters and sends them to this particular post office box, #5667. However, she finds herself writing so much more -- re-writings of fairy tales with her own plucky spin (one of her protagonist princesses decides not to marry the prince after all and not to sleep on any more piles of mattresses: She will no longer "take teeny-tiny steps. Instead, I opened my own detective agency, and lived happily ever after, asking lots and lots of questions. THE END"); creative responses to homework assignments and math problems; and letters to the editor when she hears about the imminent destruction of one of the last authentic swing bridges in her area, a place holding special significance for her father and a place, she learns the hard way, that was the backdrop for a devastating turning point in her father's illness. All the while, no one, including her mother, is talking to her honestly about his depression. She imagines herself a modern fairy tale heroine, mostly "just a victim in a tower," she writes to the nameless letter recipient: Her particular prison tower being the afterschool Homework Club, and the evil spell that has afflicted her father, his depression. The book has a steady, vigorous pace; Holmes' Cadence is fully-realized (she's entrancing when she really gets going) and will especially draw young pre-teen girls who feel a bit left of center or a bit out of place, especially if its due to their brain power in and out of the classroom ("Everyone thinks that smart people are happy, but it's not true. What's so happy about being able to see what's wrong all the time, and not having the power to fix it? What's so happy about feeling weird and different every day of your life?" she writes in one letter); as The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books put it well, the novel possesses a "{d}elicately layered grace and springiness"; and there's a lot of poignancy in the novel, yet Holmes knows how to put on the brakes and keep it from getting too schmaltzy or overdone. Her relationship with her father is especially moving; here she is writing to the nameless post office box recipient (though it quickly becomes clear, especially after getting no letters in response, that she's writing for her own self-preservation): "Did you know he writes me a letter, with a poem in it, every year, for my birthday? Half the time I don't understand the po

A girl calling herself "Rapunzel" writes letters to a post office box after she finds a scrap of a letter written from her father to the box number. It says that the unknown recipient is the key to his succeeding as a poet and as a human. Now Rapunzel's dad has been hospitalized for severe depression, and Rapunzel begins pouring her heart out in the letters, although she never receives a reply. Rapunzel feels as trapped as her namesake --- only instead of being in a castle she is stuck in the dreary Homework Club in her school cafeteria. Her busy mother insists that Rapunzel attend this after-school program. Rapunzel is new at her school and doesn't have friends her age. According to her IQ test results (which she hides from her mother), she's a genius. But she doesn't care enough about school to actually study and has no desire to enter the gifted and talented program her teachers believe is right for her. Meanwhile, she pleads for help from P.O. Box #5667. A curious Rapunzel goes to the post office to check out the box and finds it crammed full of mail. No wonder she's not getting any responses! She questions the clerk, who refuses to tell her who rents it. Rapunzel comes up with her own plan to break her father's Evil Spell. She will buy the bridge that is the subject of his book of poetry, since the bridge is for sale. Owning it surely would snap her dad out of his depression. If only she had, uh, three-quarters of a million dollars. Rapunzel's maneuverings fall through, and she is forced to attend the gifted program. The first day does not go well, to say the least. When a boy finds a poem she wrote about her father and mocks it, she decks him with an English textbook and finds herself in an all-day detention. But things go way downhill from there when poor Rapunzel learns something shocking about the bridge for sale. LETTERS FROM RAPUNZEL won the Ursula Nordstrom First Fiction Contest, and it's easy to see why. Gutsy Rapunzel has a delightfully forthright voice. Several mysteries thread through the plot, which eventually are solved in a satisfying manner. The book is humorous but also heartbreaking, filled with yearning and poignancy. Rapunzel's fresh story is one that will linger in the minds of readers for a very long time. --- Reviewed by Terry Miller Shannon

Cadence Brogan aka Rapunzel may have found someone to help her with her problems. That someone is P.O. Box # 5667. Cadence's father has battled clinical depression most of his life. His recent bout has required treatment in the hospital to regulate his medication. Shortly after her father's hospitalization, Cadence discovers a torn piece from a letter her father had written to someone with the address P.O. Box #5667. Not knowing this person, but hoping whoever it is can help shed more light on her father's condition; Cadence begins writing her own letters. The problems Cadence hopes to get help with include her father's rapid recovery and return home, a busy, hard-working mother, an annoying classmate named Andrew, and mandatory attendance in the GT (Gifted and Talented) program. A great lover of fairy tales, Cadence focuses on the similarities between herself and the imprisoned Rapunzel. Many of her letters describe her hope to escape and her search to find a cure for the Evil Spell holding her father "prisoner." As she searches for answers, some of what she discovers is not pleasant. In an effort to protect her, Cadence learns that her mother, who refers to her husband's condition as C.D., has not been completely honest about the extent of the depression. Not being able to share her thoughts with her father, more and more of Cadence's feelings pour out in her letters to #5667. Sara Lewis Holmes cleverly creates Cadence's story through these letters. She has Cadence holding out hope that her letters will be answered, but even as that hope fades, Holmes portrays a positive, up-beat Cadence. Any reader will identify with the struggle to overcome adversity, but this book is sure to hit home with readers who have experience with friends or family members suffering from clinical depression. Reviewed by: Sally Kruger, aka "Readingjunky"

Letters From Rapunzel is definitely my favorite book. I love how there's so much imagination in the book. I still wonder how the author thought of this. It is really touching too. I laughed and I cried a lot. I really felt that a preteen wrote this since "Rapunzel" seems to think just like my friends and me. It was really funny how Rapunzel compared reality to fairy tales.

This book is wonderful! My daughter and I both read the book and we can't say enough good things about it. We enjoyed that the story was told from "Rapunzel's" point of view through her diaries. The book is hilarious at times, and sad at others. It deals with a very sensitive, yet current issue, that many families are struggling with....mental illness and depression. When seen through a young adults eyes and with the added touch of humor, it helps the reader to better understand an often difficult to understand problem. I hightly recommend this book.