Book Review: Cleopatra’s Daughter

April 17, 2013April 15, 2013 / Jenn / Leave a comment

This month’s pick for my personal book club outside of the library wasCleopatra’s Daughter by Michelle Moran. In this book club we take turns selecting the month’s read and hosting at our homes. The feel of this book club is much different than the ones I run at the library, since it’s more democratic in selection of materials, and we get to eat and drink great food!

It was my turn to pick this month, and I was really looking forward to sharing Michelle Moran with my friends. The first book I read by Moran was The Heretic’s Queen, which was about Nefertari, the niece of the reviled former queen Nefertiti. I had not done much reading about ancient Egypt since sixth grade, and immediately fell in love with the time period once again.

Cleopatra’s Daughter is about, well, Cleopatra’s daughter with Marc Antony, Selene Kleopatra. The novel opens right as Octavian’s forces are storming through Alexandria, and Egypt is to be lost to Rome. Antony, thinking his wife has committed suicide, kills himself rather than be captured and killed by his former friend Octavian. The Antony children wait helplessly with their mother as word of defeat spreads and the Romans take over the city. Cleopatra will famously kill herself with the help of a snake, and the children are orphaned.

Most of the story takes place in Rome, a city very much like a city in our own time. The city’s rulers are struggling to keep order, reduce crime, entertain the masses, and maintain justice. Fortunately for us, our methods of doing all of these things have become more civilized. Selene and her twin brother are kept and raised by Antony’s former wife Octavia, sister to Octavian, a kind and sympathetic mother figure.

The story is chock full of real historical figures: Marcus Agrippa, Juba, Julia, daughter of Octavian, Livia, wife to Octavia, Tiberius, the future emperor, and many more. Moran took from contemporary times trials and incidents to highlight what a dangerous and unsafe time period it was. More than 50,000 slaves lived in the city and each time an area was conquered, more slaves were brought in. The Romans were a brutal people.

One of the things I love so much about Moran is her ability to put you in whatever time period she is writing about. You can smell the food in the marketplace, hear the cries of the gladiators in the Circus, and be in the crowd as the sentence is passed for a trial. With The Heretic Queen, I put visiting Egypt on my bucket list; now with Cleopatra’s Daughter, Rome is on my list as well.

Rating: 4 stars.

Historical Fiction for Middle School Students

March 21, 2013March 18, 2013 / Sharon Tyler / Leave a comment

As someone that has spent time in the children’s room, I have witnessed more than one panicked student, or parent, as a reading assignment for a particular kind of book comes due. Sometimes it is biographies, or sports fiction, or realistic fiction. It can be hard to know what to choose when assigned a book far outside your normal reading preferences, or when the student in question does not read much on their own anyway. Here are some options for Middle School age students assigned to read historical fiction, and have no idea where to start.

Nobody’s Princess

Nobody’s Princess by Esther Friesner is likely appeal more to girls because it is about the Spartan princess Helen as she disguises herself as a boy. She learns to fight and has adventures to prove that she should be able to make decisions about her own life. On one level, the story is about a spoiled princess using her mind and status to get her own way, but larger issues of women’s rights, slavery, choice, and individual destiny play their part as well. The era is well portrayed and the book is entertaining while leaving the reader looking for more. Thankfully, if this book sparks interest, there is a sequel, Nobody’s Prize, in which Helen manages to join the quest for the Golden Fleece on the Argo.

Fever 1793

Fever 1793 by Laurie Halse Anderson takes place as Philadelphia becomes overwhelmed with mosquitoes and rumors of fever. Many have taken ill near the docks, and the number of deaths is growing. Mattie Cook is just 14, and has just lost a friend to the fever, but she has no time to mourn. New patrons overrun her family’s coffee shop and Mattie’s fears about the fever are all but overshadowed by dreams of business success. However, the fever begins to strike closer to home and Mattie’s work to build a new life must give way to a new fight-the fight to stay alive. An accurate and compelling look at the times, and the lives of young people of the era.

City of Orphans

City of Orphans, written by Avi and illustrated by Greg Ruth takes place on the streets of New York City in 1893. Newsboys like thirteen-year- old Maks Geless need to watch out for gang leaders like Bruno, and tier plots to take control of all the newsies on the lower East Side. While on the run Maks meets Willa, a strange girl who lives alone in an alley but has spunk and skills. Maks must find a way to free his sister Emma from the city jail where she has been imprisoned after being accused of stealing a watch. Bartleby Donck, an eccentric lawyer guides Maks and Willa in the the search for the truth. The novel offers readers action, mystery, a look at historic New York, and a story about the love of family.

This is just a sampling of the available titles that might fit the bill. If these books appeal to you and your young readers I also suggest browsing our books by Markus Zusak, Henry Aubin, Ross Collins, Margaret Peterson Haddix, Susan Fletcher, Julius Lester, Lois Lowry, Gill Harvey, and Christopher Paul Curtis. Do not forget that our librarians are always available to help you find these books, or to make further suggestions.

A Literary Tour of Historical Y.A.

January 24, 2013January 25, 2013 / cheshirelib / Leave a comment

The Atlantic Wire put together a list of their favorite historical YA novels and some of the most promising on the way, categorized by historical period or event. Find them in our catalog!

ANCIENT EGYPT (AND ROME)

Cleopatra’s Moon by Vicky Alvear Shecter. (Arthur A. Levine, 2011).The imagined, totally engrossing story of Selene, the daughter of Cleopatra and Marc Antony.

THE RENAISSANCE

Gilt, by Katherine Longshore. (Viking, 2012). Longshore sets her debut novel during the reign of Henry VIII, in a court that was “a cutthroat world of gossip and wealth, a complex game of social hierarchies rife with jealousy and backstabbing.” She focuses on the story of the king’s fifth wife, Catherine Howard, for this novel; her followup, Tarnish, out this June, tells the tale of Anne Boleyn.

Venom, by Fiona Paul. (Philomel, 2012). Paul’s debut in her Secrets of the Eternal Rose series is set in Renaissance Venice, and features the character of 15-year-old Cassandra Caravello, a privileged girl who wants to be free from the proper life that’s been planned out for her, and who is swept up in a mystery when she discovers a dead body. Book two of the series, Belladonna, is out this summer.

THE FRENCH REVOLUTION

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Revolution, by Jennifer Donnelly. (Ember, 2010). This book incorporates both the French Revolution and contemporary Brooklyn, weaving two girls’ stories into one with the thread of a New York Times article about the DNA identification of the heart of Louis Charles, the son of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette.

THE VICTORIAN ERA

The Madman's Daughter (The Madman's Daughter, #1)

The Madman’s Daughter, by Megan Shepherd. (Balzer + Bray, January 2013). Another Gothic thriller, this one was inspired by the classic The Island of Dr. Moreau (the main character, Juliet, is the doctor’s daughter). It’s part one of a trilogy.

THE TITANIC

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Distant Waves: A Novel of the Titanic, by Suzanne Weyn. (Scholastic, 2009). The tale of a family of sisters who all end up on board the doomed ship. (There’s lots of other history before they get there, though.)

EARLY AMERICA

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The Luxe, by Anna Godbersen. (HarperCollins, 2007). Gaze into the world of the Manhattan elite in the late 1800s.

Something Strange and Deadly, by Susan Dennard. (HarperTeen, 2012.) Zombies rise in 1876 Philadelphia. Holy crap.

Dear America: A City Tossed and Broken, by Judy Blundell. (Scholastic, March 2013). The latest book in the Dear America series is a dramatic account of the San Francisco earthquake of 1906.

The Betsy-Tacy books, by Maude Hart Lovelace. (1945-1955). The later books in the series, when Betsy is in high school and beyond, are some of my favorites of all time. Written in the ’40s and ’50s, they depict life in small-town Minnesota at the turn of the century and into World War I. Read for a depiction of what it was like to be a woman at that time in America (it’s a fairly inspiring portrayal, because Betsy happens to have a great, progressive family). Betsy’s dreams of being a writer with her own career as well as a wife and mother aren’t too far from Lovelace’s, who based the character on herself.

WORLD WAR I

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War Horse, by Michael Morpurgo. (Scholastic, 1982). The book that came before the movie, about Joey, a bay-red foal who is sold to the army and ends up in the war on the Western Front.

THE ROARING ’20S

The Diviners, by Libba Bray. (Little, Brown, 2012). Book one of Bray’s latest series is set in New York in the 1920s and features the light as well as the dark sides of the era. The book is a hefty 592 pages, but it’s well worth the labor of toting it around.

The Flappers Series, by Jillian Larkin. (Delacorte Press; #3, 2012). Vixen, Ingenue, and Diva, the last of the series, take place in the early 1920s, featuring girls who bob their hair, speakeasies, jazz, booze, bad boys, freedom, and a lot of fun (if not always for the characters, at least for the readers).

WORLD WAR II

Code Name Verity, by Elizabeth Wein. (Hyperion, 2012). One of the best books of last year, Wein’s story concerns a young female spy and her best friend, the pilot with whom she’s crash landed in Nazi-occupied France.

Berlin Boxing Club, by Robert Sharenow. (HarperTeen, 2012/paperback). Karl Stern, a 14-year-old living in Berlin in 1935, comes from a Jewish family that is not religious. As anti-Jewish violence escalates, he becomes the victim of a beating at the hands of Nazi Youth members at his school. As part of a deal with his dad, German national hero Max Schmeling gives him boxing lessons. “Can Karl balance his dream of boxing greatness with his obligation to keep his family out of harm’s way?”

Between Shades of Gray, by Ruta Sepetys. (Speak, 2012). Lina’s family is torn apart when soldiers invade her home in Lithuania and she’s sent to a Siberian work camp. Booklist calls Supetys’ acclaimed book “a harrowing and horrifying account of the forcible relocation of countless Lithuanians in the wake of the Russian invasion of their country in 1939.”

The Book Thief, by Markus Zusak. (Knopf, 2007). This book about World War II and its aftermath, narrated by Death and focusing on a little girl who steals books but, at least initially, can’t read, is itself a must-read for the engaging, heart-rending narrative and unique portrayal of this particular time in history.