In her first picture book, "Little Red" (2106), author-illustrator Bethan Woollvin gave children a savvy "Little Red Riding Hood" who got the best of the big bad wolf all by herself. Here, Woollvin continues her empowering take on classic fairy tales by making Rapunzel a creative thinker who not only finds her own way out of the witch's tower-no prince required-but who is clearly going to make life difficult for any other witches that cross her path. Woollvin's gouache and digital illustrations in a color palette of black, white, grey, and yellow, are idiosyncratic and bold, complementing the book's mildly dark humor and girl-centric message of self-reliance. Rapunzel does quite matter-of-factly dispatch her captor, by the way, but there are no violent images-although a pair of skinny legs and witchy shoes can be spotted protruding from behind the vacated tower.