Letters from Rapunzel by Sara Lewis Holmes

She could have called herself "Goldilocks" because of her wild, blonde hair. She definitely was not "Sleeping Beauty," since she only slept when she had to. "Cinderella" was not an option, since she loved to dance wildly and would have snapped off the glass heel of the slipper way before midnight. She called herself "Rapunzel" - not that she identified herself with that particular lettuce. No, she identified with "Rapunzel," the fairytale character who was stuck in a tower. When Rapunzel discovers part of a letter her father has written to someone at a P.O. Box number, someone who helped her father succeed as a poet and a human being, she is intrigued. When her father is admitted to a mental hospital, she starts writing to the person with the P.O. Box number asking for help. Her mother calls her father's sickness "CD" (clinical depression). Rapunzel calls it the "evil spell," and she is determined to find a way to rescue him. Rapunzel's quest for a happy ending is recorded in Letters from Rapunzel by Sara Lewis Holmes. It is a sensitively written, moving story of a young girl, who, though she feels utterly alone, bravely takes heroic measures to understand and help her father. Review by Trudy Walsh