By Colorado Kids reader Anya Semenoff

Title: The Royal Diaries - Marie Antoinette, Princess of Versailles
Author: Kathryn Lasky
Publisher: Scholastic
Number of pages: 236

Diaries. They are all unique in their own special ways. This book starts when Marie Antoinette (then Marie Antonia) receives a diary from her teacher Abbe' de Vermond in the year 1769. At first she doesn't enjoy writing but, as the year goes by, the diary becomes her most precious possession.

When Marie Antoinette was very young she was betrothed to Louis Auguste, who was to be the King of France. To be betrothed means being engaged to get married. So, throughout her diary, she is explaining the many things she must learn to be the Queen of France.

I liked this book because it was interesting to learn some of the different customs the French had back then. Such as, up to 1,000 people would watch the royal family dine everyday. Also, the women would hook little honey-filled glass vials to their hoops to keep the fleas from their hair, which was powdered with wheat flour to make it white. They hoped that the fleas would be attracted to the honey instead of to their hair. Hoops were like hula-hoops attached under the woman's dress and were used to make the dress look more full. They were usually made of whalebone.

The book also had good descriptions of places like the Hall of Mirrors and Versailles. The only thing that was difficult about this book was the many French terms. They were sometimes hard to understand.

I would recommend this book to grades 6 and up because of the French terms. Also I would recommend any books from the Royal Diary series. They are all unique in their own special ways. (November, 2000)

A reader responds:
I am writing about the book "Marie Antoinette: Princess of Versailles". I have read it a couple of times, because I have been studying Marie Antoinette for about 5 years. I have read several nonfiction books on her, also.

I have observed that many of the things in the Royal Diaries book is not true. For instance, they talk about her riding lessons. In real life, she never had riding lessons until she had been living in France for about a year. Her mother never would have allowed it in Austria. She also talked to Madame Du Barry more than once in her lifetime. When she has her "remise", she does not change her clothes in front of many people, or have to travel across a room naked. And she did not have a dog named Schnitzy, and although she did have a dog, it was not allowed to go to Versailles with her.

I just thought that that should be clear. I am 15 years old, so I am pretty much just out of the age group for this book. But, even so, I think that girls should know that a lot of that was not true. Yes, it is a nonfiction book. But if someone was to write a report on it, for instance, I think they would want to know the truth!
Thanks!
G.R.