Marie Antoinette, princess of Versailles

Kathryn Lasky

Book - 2000

In 1769, thirteen-year-old Maria Antonia Josepha Johanna, daughter of Empress Maria Theresa, begins a journal chronicling her life at the Austrian court and her preparations for her future role as queen of France. Includes information about the history of the period, a family tree, and contemporary portraits.

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jFICTION/Royal Diaries
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Children's Room jFICTION/Royal Diaries Due Apr 7, 2024
Subjects
Published
New York : Scholastic 2000.
Language
English
Main Author
Kathryn Lasky (-)
Physical Description
236 p. : ill. ; 19 cm
ISBN
9780439076661
Contents unavailable.
Review by Booklist Review

Gr. 5^-8. Few young readers know about Maria Antonia Josepha Johanna, archduchess of Vienna, though they may have heard of Marie Antoinette. It was a politically advantageous, arranged marriage that brought Maria Antonia fame and notoriety as Marie Antoinette, queen of France. This Royal Diaries title spans a two-year period, beginning in 1769 as 13-year-old Marie prepares for and navigates the complex rituals, responsibilities, and superficiality of French courtly life. Lasky's Marie is delightfully dimensional, independent yet insecure, spoiled and fashion crazy. She's bewildered by parental conflict and the manners of society, and her experiences are colored by the hopes, dreams, and disappointments of life and love. Best known for her extravagance--and her beheading during the French Revolution--Marie here discovers that privilege and political status has a price as well as rewards. Endnotes provide historical background and context, and as in others in the series, there's a selection of well-chosen visuals of people and places of the times. Unlike the epilogue in some of the other diary-entry series books, the epilogue here works well, helping to make this well-researched series entry informative as well as entertaining. Quality writing, lively characterizations, and abundant historical detail. --Shelle Rosenfeld

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by School Library Journal Review

Gr 5-8-Lasky takes historical fact and weaves it into a sympathetic account of an adolescent Marie Antoinette. Antonia's diary begins shortly before her politically arranged betrothal and marriage to Louis Auguste, Dauphin of France. It describes her struggles with strange new customs, in particular the elaborate French Court etiquette. The descriptions of Versailles and palace life hold true to fact and fit well into the diary of the Dauphine experiencing her new country. The diary also does a believable job of taking Marie Antoinette from a girl of 13 to a young woman of 15. Antonia goes from playing childhood games to become Marie Antoinette, future queen, playing political games with Madame du Barry. At the conclusion of the novel, an epilogue continues the story to its historical completion. Notes and a family tree are useful for readers who know little of 18th-century royalty and politics. This will be a popular addition for readers who favor the diary format in historical fiction. An excellent companion to this series is Milton Meltzer's Ten Queens (Dutton, 1998).-Carolyn Janssen, Rockford Public Library, IL (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Horn Book Review

In this fictional diary of thirteen-year-old Marie Antonia, Lasky makes good use of detail, incorporating many aspects of everyday life in both the Austrian and French courts as the young archduchess prepares to become the Dauphine of France. Some minor liberties are taken with events, but in general this is an engaging read. Historical notes, a family tree, and black-and-white archival reproductions are appended. From HORN BOOK Fall 2000, (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review

Psychologically astute and packed with historical detail, this faux diary opens when Marie Antoinette [then called Maria Antonia] was a 13-year-old youngster. Despite Marie's nobility and lavish lifestyle, she comes off as an engaging and understandable adolescent though living under the tight domination of her imperious mother, the Empress of the Holy Roman Empire of the Germanic Nations, who strictly controlled her daughter's education and behavior. Readers should identify with her struggle to achieve autonomy and sympathize when she's married off to the unappealing Louis Auguste, the future king of France, at the tender age of fourteen. The particulars of royal life in the early 1770s, such as the fact that court etiquette demanded that Marie Antoinette bathe with `no fewer than eight women` present, a ritual presided over by a countess wearing `a full hooped gown,` jewels and a wig, are intricately rendered and astonishing to behold. It's hard to imagine that the sweet, down-to-earth Marie Antoinette whom Lasky portrays will turn into the frivolous materialist of history, and readers will have to make their peace with this issue. Still, a royal read that manages to both entrance and instruct. (Historical fiction. 1014) Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.