Melisande by E.Nesbit

Surprised that no one else has brought this up yet.

Anyway there's a children's book written by Edith Nesibit. The plot is about a named Melisande who is born bald due to a curse. On her eighteenth birthday (if memory serves) she wishes to have fast growing hair. She gets her wish but whenever her hair is cut it's growth doubles. She becomes like Rapunzel until a Prince figures out a way to cut Melisande from her hair and hopefully stopping its growth.

At first everything is fine but Melisande herself begins to grow and her own growth doubles everyday. With her size she is able to repel an invading army but her growth continues until she is miles tall. She is able to pick up her island kingdom and transport them to a warmer climate away from their enemies. She only continues to grow until a prince cuts some of her hair off and causes her to shrink to normal.

Melsiande's hair begins to grow rapidly again but this time when the hair is cut a scale is used so that both she and the hair are at equal height. This causes her hair to stop growing and she doesn't grow either. She then marries the prince and they live happily ever after.

Below is the giant Melisande illustrations from the book and I know that there is a Russian series of illustrations as well along with a short animated film.

[knoxfan1316]

Interesting find. In fact, I think there was an animated musical short that was based on this story made in Russia.

[RedJack]

This is a very interesting find. Too bad there was never animated like Alice in Wonderland. What a wasted GTS material potential :/ But thanks for sharing none the less.

[TBG]

I really like that old art style. The method of Growth is very unique and the fact she gets VERY big is also appealing!

[Reebok]

Damn, I remember this book from my high school library, but I didn't remember the name! Thanks for your find.

[TB Tabby]

This was on the site years ago. Glad to see it again.

Here's an audio book of it that I found. The video has no pictures unfortunately.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VyMKL5MAJkU

[BlazingBarrager]

Heh, this style reminds me of another book that had GTS material in it I liked as a child. Forgot what it was called though.