Grace of Monaco

Gr 3--5--These Western-focused, chronological biographies feature clear writing and an abundance of photographs, artifacts, and sidebars to draw readers in and keep them engaged. The authors include interesting facts that will appeal to young people, along with complex representations of the issues these women faced (loneliness, divorce, childbirth, and executions). These books are useful for research and reports as they contain succinct facts, a time line of events, a family tree, an index, a glossary, and recommended titles (most of which are juvenile). However, the books are marred by a distracting use of multicolored words on the opening two pages of each book. They also lack citations or references for quoted material. Images are captioned and credited but are not consistently dated. VERDICT These are realistic biographies for collections in need of additional books about these queens and princesses.