Last week after I finished reading Rapunzel (Paul O. Zelinsky's 1998 Caldecott Medal version) to third graders, one usually quiet student raised her hand and said, "I have two questions."
First, if there are no doors to the tower, how did Rapunzel and the wicked stepmother get in it in the first place? Her classmates had lots of possibilities, all involving magic.
And then, how could the blind prince wander and still find berries and roots at the end? Again, creative answers helped her contemplate possibilities.
After that, they flooded me with more and more questions, the most interesting focused on how her wicked stepmother would have known Rapunzel was going to have a baby and was not just getting fat. I explained the best I could...I can only imagine the dinner table conversations that night.
who knew? it takes such courage to reveal the unspoken.
ReplyDeleteWhat I liked most was that she normally keeps to herself!
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