Raucous Royals by Carlyn Beccia

Beccia, C. (2008). Raucous Royals: Test your Royal Wits: Crack Codes, Solve Mysteries, and Deduce WhichRoyal Rumors are True (p. 64). Houghton Mifflin.

ISBN: 0618891307

Price : $17.00 hardcover

Reader's Annotation: Learn about some of Europe's kookiest monarchs, and decide for yourself whether the rumors about them are true.

Summary: This book encourages tweens to be "history detectives" by asking questions about well known rumors about some of Europe's most notorious monarchs. Did Marie Antoinette say "Let them eat cake?" Did Richard III kill his nephews? Was Napoleon short? With plenty of factual information, humorous illustrations, and a thought provoking question and answer style, Beccia digs deep into the mysteries of royalty.

Genre: book, nonfiction, women's history, tudors, royalty

Series : This book is not part of a series.

Evaluation: This picture book for tweens has a good balance of fact and fun, and will capture the interests of even reluctant readers.

Why it belongs in a Tween Collection: It's history, but it's fun. It's non-fiction, but thoroughly readable. Keep this book around for tweens who need to liven up their history lessons.


Readalikes :

• Oh, Rats: The Story of Rats and People by Albert Merrin
  
• Good Masters! Sweet Ladies! Voice from a Medieval Village by Laura Schlitz
  

Other Useful Info:

• Carlyn Beccia's Website
  

Reviews:

"[Beccia's] stylish mélange of witty illustrations—silhouettes with speech bubbles, dramatic tableaux, caricatures—and interactive text demands reader participation: rather than provide a historical narrative, the author presents statements as true-or-false quizzes, then theorizes why a rumor might have come to exist." Starred, September 29, 2008 (Publishers Weekly, Starred )