Eleanor: Crown Jewel of Aquitaine, France, 1136

This post first published July 2, 2012.

Author: Kristiana Gregory
First Published: November 2002
Publisher: Scholastic
Series: The Royal Diaries
187 pages (hardcover)
 
Continuing my Royal Diaries nostalgic re-readathon, I have just finished this one on Eleanor. I actually don’t even remember if I read this particular one as a kid, though as an adult now, I find myself fascinated with Eleanor of Aquitaine’s life.

I think this book is a great way for kids to be introduced to this princess/queen. This book focuses on Eleanor’s life as a pre-teen. In this story, she is living happily with her father, the Duke of Aquitaine, and her younger sister Petra. The Duke of Aquitaine holds even more land than the King of France himself, and as the Duke has no male heirs, the lands will pass to Eleanor one day. Eleanor worries about how a lot of people seem to despise her father, especially when he decides to help Count Geoffrey of Anjou invade Normandy. When her father returns, he is a changed man, becoming more kind and spiritual, although many doubt this is a sincere change. When the Duke unexpectantly dies, Eleanor realizes she has become the most eligible bride in the country, since she is in control of so much land, and is soon to be married to Prince Louis the Younger of France.

This portrayal of Eleanor is mostly made up, I think, since even the historical note at the end said the real Eleanor was said to be extravagant and spoiled, which is not really shown in this book. However, she was also said to be headstrong and carefree, which this book Eleanor certainly was. Book Eleanor was also very much a family person and adored her father and younger sister, as well as a person who was quite kind to her servants. So basically, she was portrayed in the most positive light possible, which is how all the other royalty in this book series are portrayed too. Not that that’s a bad thing, exactly, but the princesses all kind of blend together since they are not really made to be unique. I guess they want to set a good example for the middle schoolers reading this book, which is understandable, and I suppose one would not notice unless one actually plans to read more than few books from this series.

Characterization is basically my only complaint with this book. Other than that, I enjoyed reading this quite a bit. You get to learn the circumstances that brought Eleanor to become Queen of France, and there is also quite a lot about what life was like back in the medieval times. I knew the medieval times was a “dirtier” time, with ticks and bugs crawling in people’s hair being a regular thing, but I was really horrified at the scene where Eleanor sees one of her servant boys throw up a mass of white worms, and a physician pulling out a long white worm the length of an arm from a girl’s head! Poor medieval people, I thought!

All in all, this was a pretty good book, I think a middle schooler would enjoy reading this one. It ended off at a good spot too, right when Eleanor becomes Queen, so that kids who are interested in what happened after she became Queen have a good place to start.

My Rating: 4/5

Catherine: The Great Journey, Russia, 1743

This post first published June 25, 2012.

Author: Kristiana Gregory
First Published: September 2005
Publisher: Scholastic
Series: The Royal Diaries
176 pages (hardcover)
 
When I was a kid, around ten or twelve years old, this was one of my absolute favourite book series. I adore books about princesses, real or fictional, and love learning about them. There’s twenty books in this series, I own eight of them. I recently decided to re-read some of them, partly for nostalgic reasons, and partly because I’m kind of behind in my 100 books goal and would like to shamelessly bring that number up a bit, heh.

This book is about a little German princess who lived in Prussia, who was born as Sophia. Her mother is a relentless social climber, a princess herself, but such a minor one that no one really cares about them. She always dreams of being related to “real” royalty. When Empress Elisabeth of Russia sends out a request for portraits of young, eligible ladies to be sent to her so she may choose a bride for her heir, the Grand Duke Peter, Sophia and her mother are both shocked and excited that Elisabeth chooses Sophia. Thus Sophia makes the great journey from Prussia to Russia, through the snow and cold, to meet her future husband. When she meets the Empress, the Empress decides Sophia should be named Catherine instead, after her mother. Catherine would later go on to become Catherine the Great.

I thought the book was pretty good. It wasn’t the most exciting or engaging one (I remember the Anastasia and Cleopatra books in this series being very addicting). I think the issue is that Catherine’s life is much more interested after she marries and becomes Empress, than before. I know the series focuses on the princesses in their tween/teen years, but Catherine just doesn’t have that much going during that part of her life, besides the betrothal. Still, I do think the book was written pretty good and despite not too much happening in her life. The book focuses more on Catherine’s relationships with her mother, Empress Elisabeth and her betrothed, Peter, which  I think is great for laying down the groundwork for those interested in reading more about Catherine, because Catherine does have some tense relationships with those people.

This portrayal of Catherine is very easy to like. I’m not sure how she is usually portrayed; this is my first historical fiction involving Catherine the Great. From what I know of her from history though, I imagine she would often be portrayed as very ambitious? This Catherine in this book does have hints of ambitiousness but the author, whether purposely or not, downplayed a lot of it, or made it sound more like a nice girl chasing a dream to be a good empress.

My only real complaint is the ending. It was very, very abrupt. I was surprised to turn the page and realize that the story was done.

If you don’t mind reading juvenile books, I think this one is a pretty good one to try out, especially if you like historical fiction and/or have an interest in the Russian empress, Catherine the Great.

My Rating: 3/5