The Magic Callaloo

The Magic Callaloo is a vibrant and moving retelling of the fairytale ‘Rapunzel’, starring a brave and resourceful girl with blossoming Afro curls, born out of a wish her parents place on the leaf of a callaloo plant. One day she is stolen away by a wicked and greedy man and made to work for him, until a passing wise woman gives her what she needs to find her way home.

Accompanied by Sophie Bass's brightly painted illustrations, the imaginative prose incorporates elements of African folklore and transatlantic histories, most strikingly the practice of enslaved Africans braiding maps of escape routes into their cornrowed hair, which is illuminated in a thoughtful Author’s Note.