Zel by Donna Jo NapoliThirteen-year-old Zel lives happily with her mother in the country in the mid-1500s. On their semiannual trip to town, days before her birthday, Zel meets Count Konrad, a youth a few years older than her. After she helps the smith with the youth's horse, the youth insists on repaying her, and Zel asks for a goose egg, for the goose who lives near her and always insists on lying on a nest of stones. The youth finds an egg for her, and Zel is most grateful. After returning to their home, Zel's mother finds to her dismay that Zel has developed a crush. Mother is made desperate by the thought that Zel might leave her. She locks Zel in a tower, telling Zel that it is for her own good, and that there are bad people out looking to hurt her. Zel stays in the tower for over two years, during which her sanity becomes questionable. In the meantime, Konrad has searched high and low for Zel, but he cannot find her. Until one day, betrothed and soon to marry, not even looking, he finds the tower where Zel is standing in her window, and he recognizes her.
Since this is a telling of Rapunzel, you probably know what happens next. This narrative stays true to every detail of the story, and at the end, you are forced to empathise even with Mother, who loved her Zel, for whom she traded rapunzel and her soul. The narrative is third person limited throughout, with the person focused on changing with every chapter. To tell this story, Napoli chooses the setting of 16th century Europe. If you wanted the story to be told in a more modern fashion, what changes would you make in the story?
Happy reading.
