Baby book club: Rapunzel by Chloe Perkins

Hi there! Welcome to Baby Book Club, where baby librarians Marian and Tilly read and discuss a book together. Today’s book club pick is part of the Once Upon a World Series, Rapunzel by Chloe Perkins, illustrated by Archana Sreenivasan.

Marian: I like all the bright colors! I wish I could pick up the colors and put them in my mouth.

Tilly: I agree. The colours are quite good in this book. I also like that some of the words are different sizes, so you know the bigger words are more important. And I like Rapunzel’s dress. It’s blue and pretty. I wore a blue dress for my first birthday!

Marian: I wish I could’ve come to your party! I don’t understand why Nashville is so far away from San Diego. I love Rapunzel’s hair. It would be so nice to yank on it, don’t you think? It’s even longer than Mommy’s. And it has those stars in it. She lets both the prince and the witch yank on it, so I bet she’d be fine with letting us yank on it too. I don’t have hair yet, and the walking babies at story time like to pet the fuzz on my head. I’m glad I don’t have hair because I like to make friends at story time. But I also want to have hair because it’s so much fun to pull on and Mommy lets hers tickle my face sometimes and that’s silly. Do you have hair? Is it like Rapunzel’s?

Tilly: I have lots of hair! My daddy puts it in pigtails but sometimes other babies pull them so that’s not always good. I wonder how the witch and prince climb up Rapunzel’s hair without hurting her — I learnt early on that it hurts when you pull on hair. I used to pull on my own hair and then cry because it hurt. I’ve stopped doing that now but I still like pulling Mummy’s hair because that doesn’t hurt me.

Marian: Pigtails! Wow! Your hair is like Rapunzel’s! It’s sad that Rapunzel doesn’t have any friends, though it would be cool to be friends with the pretty green bird she sings to. I hope she has some toys to play with. I would be Rapunzel’s friend.

Tilly: Me too! And I bet she has a good view up in that tower. I’d like to visit it.

Marian: At first I thought it was weird that the prince could tell that Rapunzel is pretty by her singing, but once I thought about it, I realized I do the same thing. There’s this one singer — Sierra Boggess — and I know she’s beautiful because I love her singing. And Elmo’s voice is beautiful too, just like he is. I like to practice my singing voice by screaming while I play with my toys. Do you like to sing?

Tilly: I love singing! I sing along and clap to songs all the time. Sometimes Mummy tries to get me to sleep by playing music but then I don’t sleep and just sing instead. I don’t have any favourite singers though. Maybe Miss Kim at story time.

Marian: I need to know more about this wand. Like, what other tricks can it do? Can I have one? Once I have it, can I throw it on the ground and then play with it in the floor? That’s mainly all I need to know.

Tilly: I wonder if the wand does good things too, or if it’s just for banishing people and making them blind? You could probably throw it all over and play with it anywhere but you might accidentally curse someone. Got to be careful about these things.

Marian: My tears are magical too! When I cry, it always makes Mommy do something, and if she doesn’t do it fast enough, I cry even harder. Are your tears magical?

Tilly: Yes! I have trained my humans well, and the magical tears were an excellent training device.

Marian: My favorite part of the story was when the witch tricked the prince. She’s funny! But my favorite picture is the first one because that hair is so pretty! And there are birds! What are your favorite parts?

Tilly: I liked the pages with the horses. They kind of look like dogs (I call them woofs) and I like dogs. And I liked the orange page with Rapunzel and the prince talking. They looked happy and the colours are good and there’s a teapot on the page. I think teapots and tea are important because my Mummy always begins the day with tea.

Marian: My mommy does too, but sometimes she doesn’t finish the tea because I want to play with it. That shouldn’t make her stop drinking it though; I’m trying to share! She should be better about sharing. Thanks for reading with me Tilly! Let’s do this again. I hope some of our baby librarian friends read this book!