Climbing Rosa (review)

A fed-up king decides it is time to find a wife for his bookworm son, and climbing the giant tree outside of the palace provides the perfect test for the would-be brides. Luckily for Rosa, whose evil stepmother and stepsister force her to sleep on the roof of their cottage, climbing is second nature, and the task of scaling the tree is a relatively easy feat. Rosa's stepsister, Irma, follows behind and then tries to grab the glory, but Rosa is the victor in the end, landing (on) the prince and gaining the happily-ever-after. This picture book is, as a brief source note explains, a very simplified version of a Hungarian folktale (here featuring a female hero instead of a male); the story loses a bit of the richness and context of the original, but the paring down makes it well-suited for a quick storytime readaloud. The combination of the climbing adventure and Cinderella happy ending will offer a captivating twist on more familiar tales for young listeners. Fowles' art is as vivid and charismatic as it was in her earlier The Bachelor and the Bean (BCCB 4/03), with swaths of dappled pastel watercolor foregrounded by bright, opaque tapestry-like detail. She successfully uses composition to create height and movement, pairing action with soft floral patterns and folk imagery that tag the story as romantic fantasy. Pair this with "Jack and the Beanstalk" for contrapuntal sky-bound journeys.