To Be a Princess: The Fascinating Lives of Real Princesses

by Hugh Brewster, Laurie Coulter, Laurie McGaw (Illustrator)

Princesses live in splendid palaces with servants to grant their every wish....or do they? Here the stories of twelve real princesses reveal what life behind the palace walls is really like. "This night I think to die," declares Elizabeth Tudor as she shivers in the Tower of London in 1554. Her half sister, Queen Mary, sees her as a rival to the throne. But Elizabeth survives, and in four more years, she is queen. Two hundred years later, fourteen-year-old Marie Antoinette of Austria is told she will marry the heir to the French throne, whom she hasn't even met. She could never have imagined that the crowds who cheer her and her young husband will one day cry out for their blood.Princess Victoria is eleven when she learns she will someday become England's queen. Princess Ka'iulani of Hawai'i is told just the opposite. "You will never be queen," whispers her dying mother in an eerie prophecy. For Anastasia and her three sisters, daughters of the Tsar of Russia, home is a beautiful palace surrounded by gardens and lakes. But war and revolution will shatter their sheltered world forever. The world will also change for Ayesha Devi, daughter of an Indian maharajah, and for Elizabeth and Margaret Rose, the two little princesses of 1930s' Great Britain. And they change with it, setting the style that is followed by the princesses of today. Throughout this handsome book, elegant portraits and period artifacts and photographs complement the story of each princess and recreate the worlds in which they lived. Together, the lives of these young royal women tell a story more fascinating than any fairy tale.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Biography, Royalty, Childrens, France, Historical

64 pages, Hardcover

First published October 1, 2001

About the author

Being able to create books about history is a dream job for me since I’ve always been enthralled by history. When I was growing up in Georgetown, Ontario, our house was just around the corner from the town library. And I haunted its children’s section—reading sometimes four or five books a week. Historical fiction titles by writers like Geoffrey Trease and Rosemary Sutcliffe were particular favourites. I still treasure a copy of Ernest Thompson Seton’s Two Little Savages that I was given as a prize in a library reading contest in 1960.

Since ours was the only house in the neighbourhoood without a TV antenna on the roof, reading was my primary form of entertainment. My parents thought their four children would read more without a television to distract us. And they were right, we did — though we also showed up at our friends’ houses whenever our favourite shows were on!

Our family had moved to Georgetown from a small town in Scotland in 1956, when I was six years old. When I was thirteen we moved to Guelph, Ontario, and I went to high school and university there. My first real job after graduating with an English degree in 1971 was with Scholastic – then a fairly new publishing company in Canada. As an editor for Scholastic Inc. from 1972 to 1984 in both Toronto and New York, I was involved in the creation of Scholastic’s Canadian children’s publishing program as well as in the selecting of books for Scholastic’s school book clubs. (One of our early discoveries was the teenaged author Gordon Korman and his Bruno and Boots books.)

Between 1984 and 2004 I was the Editorial Director and Publisher of Madison Press Books in Toronto. While there, I helped to create a number of successful books for both adults and young readers including Robert Ballard’s The Discovery the Titanic, that has sold over 1.5 million copies, and TITANIC: An Illustrated History a book that provided inspiration for James Cameron’s epic movie. Among the award-winning children’s books that I edited and compiled are: Polar the Titanic Bear, On Board the Titanic, First to Fly, and Journey to Ellis Island.

The first children’s book that I actually both wrote and compiled was Anastasia’s Album: The Last Tsar’s Youngest Daughter Tells Her Own Story, which was published in 1996 and won a number of awards. In 1997 I wrote the text for Inside the Titanic, which featured amazing cutaway illustrations by Ken Marschall. The next year, with Laurie Coulter, I compiled a book filled with fascinating facts about the Titanic entitled 882 1/2 Amazing Answers to Your Questions About the Titanic. Laurie and I went on to write To Be A Princess in 2001 which was a Silver Birch and Red Cedar nominee. In 2004, the 60th anniversary of D-Day, I wrote On Juno Beach which won the Children’s Literature of Canada Information Book Award in 2005. The success of that book encouraged me to write At Vimy Ridge which appeared in 2007 and won the Norma Fleck Award in 2008.

In 2005, I decided to devote myself to writing full-time and have produced seven books since then: The Other Mozart: The Life of the Famous Chevalier de Saint George published Fall 2006; Carnation, Lily, Lily Rose: The Story of a Painting and Breakout Dinosaurs. DIEPPE: Canada’s Darkest Day of World War II was released in 2009 and was followed by the novel Prisoner of Dieppe in Scholastic’s new I Am Canada series. A second novel, Deadly Voyage appeared in Fall ’11 and for the 100th anniversary of the Titanic, I produced a large adult book entitled Gilded Lives, Fatal Voyage in Spring 2012.

Reviews

[Mimi · Rating 3 out of 5]

There are probably several books out there doing a beter job of introducing these princesses to kids (the Royal Diaries series comes to mind) and getting them to ´connect´ with these historical figures.
On the other hand, the texts are concise, and a decent introduction to both the princesses and non-fiction reading, even though it only scratches the surface on both.
Not very effective, however, if you want to break the Disney-bewitchment.
That the selected bibliography suggests 4 books by Carolly Erickson, who is known to be a bit... cavalier with her historic facts and sources, also casts a bit of a shadow on this tome.

[Melissa · Rating 4 out of 5]

A few months ago I read a BYU magazine article on a mother who taught her daughter about real princesses using art history books she had from college. She didn't want her daughter thinking the Disney version was how real princesses lived. I have been trying to find a book that would do that same sort of thing, because they are obsessed with princesses and I would love for them to know what it means to be a real princess in the context of various countries histories. This book was wonderful. It features short, true stories of real princesses from a variety of countries. A maharaja's daughter from India, princesses from England, Russian tsarina's, a Hawaiian princess and other European princesses. It was still a bit over the head for my three daughters, but it was a perfect book to see the actual portraits of real people, to tell their stories. I read it myself and enjoyed the stories and learned quite a bit. I will be getting this again in a few years for when my daughters are a little older.

[Lori · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although this is a children's book I really enjoyed reading it. They covered quite a few Royal Princesses from Hawaii to England to India and others. Each Princess was a few pages long and was an easy, informative read

[Gaile · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book has beautiful illustrations.

[Elizabeth · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a great book. It features twelve princesses, gives short bios and timelines along with some pictures of royal treasures and formal paintings. I had always wondered about the Royal family of Hawai'i and now I know!
I really enjoyed this book and highly recommend it to any royal fan.

[Paul Black · Rating 3 out of 5]

I appreciate the many stories of princesses. The pictures were wonderful.

[Jennifer · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a children's book, but I thoroughly enjoyed it myself. It has beautiful art, photos and informative time lines. There are short bios on the; 'Rival Sisters', Queen Mary (1516-58) & Queen Elizabeth (1533-1603) Tudor. 'The Empress's Daughter', Austria/France, Marie Antoinette (1755-93). 'I Will Be Good' England, Queen Victoria (1819-1901). 'The Island Rose', Hawai'i, Princess Ka'iulani (1875-99). 'The Tsar's Daughter's', Russia, Olga (1895-1918), Tatiana (1897-1918), Marie (1899-1918, Anastasia (1901-1918?). 'A Princess of India'; Gayatri "Ayesha" Devi (1919-). She went from being a princess to running for Parliament, writing a book and opening a school for girls in India. 'The Little Princesses', England: Queen Elizabeth (1926-current) & Princess Margaret (1930-). Epilogue talks about current (as of printing) Princesses that are athletes, Olympian's, and hero's to the people everywhere for the good they do around the world. As an adult this book was inspiring, especially about the lesser know Princesses. I want to research more about them.

[Rachelmontoya · Rating 2 out of 5]

Lexile:450L

Age group: Upper Elementary

genre: Informational Text

Summary: This text is an informational text that supplies much information on what princesses did, wore, looked like, etc. There seems to be endless information that students to research at their age appropriate level about princesses and that era.

Classroom use: I would use this during centers as a supplementary book for a certain time period or interest. I would also want this available in my classroom library so students could look at this if they were interested in this topic.

[Kami · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read pieces of this. I liked the idea of reading about real princesses to my one princess-obsessed daughter, but this was not not it. You could tell they tried to make it interesting by adding details to make it read like a story, but overall it was just too long and dull for my 6 and 7 year old girls attention spans. It's too bad because their lives were very interesting. Or this book might just work better for a little older children.

[MCPLD Youth Department]

To be a princess may not be all that a person would hope it to be. The author records the lives of several princesses and tells about their lives. There are beautiful portraits and period artifacts as well a photos to supplement the story.

[Stacy · Rating 3 out of 5]

With each "chapter" written as a short story of the life of a young real-life princess, this book is aimed at younger readers. The stories are written simplistically, and interspersed within the pages are pictures of paintings and artifacts from each time period and for each princess.

[Olivia · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very insightful book about different princesses with openings that are like stories. Wonderful book!

[Tara · Rating 3 out of 5]

More for the 4th or 5th grader than the youngster, this book is a nice compilation of a bunch of biographies!

[Molly · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting look at what it's like to be a REAL princess, not a fairy tale, "happily ever after" princess.

[Julia · Rating 5 out of 5]

We are using this as our history cirriculum this year. We are all loving it!
My 8yo daughter told her friends that her favorite subject in school is "Princesses." :-)

[Theresa · Rating 3 out of 5]

a book about a little girls dream to be a princess and how she needs to act and behave

[Hannah · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love history, and this is the perfect book to learn about real historical princesses. My favorite story is that of Queen Elizabeth 1.

[Alyssa Greatbanks · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a pretty good book. It gave a lot of information, but didn't spend much time on any one princess.

[Rebekah · Rating 3 out of 5]

I great way to show little girls that being a princess wasn't always the fairytale they believe it to be. Wonderful history lesson.

[Kim · Rating 4 out of 5]

Short bios of a dozen princesses from India to Hawai'i, England to Russia. Many beautiful photos accompany the text.

[Leigh Regan Hauserman · Rating 5 out of 5]

I normally don't do non-ficiton, but I love princesses. I loved learning about the lives of royalties. I didn't learn anything this interesting in school.