CW: death, beheading
I saw a friend of mine on Goodreads reading a book from the Royal Diaries series, which is the historical fiction YA series of diaries of famous women in history. I also saw someone else post about it on Instagram, and it unlocked a child memory of mine. I used to check these out at my elementary school library, and I never read all of them. I loved how the pages on these books are gold foil-like, so they are kind of shiny.
Now, I've created a reading challenge for myself to read all 20 of them, one each month for the next twenty months. I'm reading them in publication order, and Elizabeth I's was the first one to be published in 1999.
I have read this one before because I was *obsessed* with Elizabeth I in fourth and fifth grade; I was even Queen Elizabeth I for Halloween in fifth grade (and I think I still have the dress)! It was nice to revisit this book. I read it faster than I did then because my reading level is definitely higher, but I enjoyed the diary format since it's not a format that's common in adult books.
I think this book provides a lot of historical context for Elizabeth I for young readers who are not familiar with this era in history and British history in general; there are also historical notes in the back that provide more information about who Elizabeth I and her family were in real life. The author, Kathryn Lasky, talked about the research she did in the author's note, and I was wondering what this research looked like and how it informed how she imagine Elizabeth I's voice as a teenager.
My biggest critique of this book is that the entries' years randomly change. One second it's November 14,1546, and the next entry on the same page is November 15, 1545. It seems like there was some issues of editing here, which kind of throws off the timeline of the entire book since the reader is not sure what the year is.
Have you read any books from the Royal Diaries series? Let me know which ones you've read in the comments!
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