ROYAL DIARIES: NZINGHA

I love this book. This is definitely one of my fave RDs. Literally, my only criticism is that it's far too short! It's only 85 pages. It's short, but it's also well-written and gets the entire story across in just these few pages. All the characters are pretty awesome, except the ones you're supposed to dislike.

McKissack wrote a few of the Dear America series: A Picture of Freedom (one of the more well-known DAs) in 1997, Color Me Dark in 2000, and Look to the Hills in 2004. I don't remember the latter two well enough to say right now, but I know I enjoyed A Picture of Freedom.

Really nothing much else to say other than read this! Nzingha is a badass. I love her.

ROYAL DIARIES: MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS

The author of this RD is the same that wrote Elizabeth's diary, Kathryn Lasky. The same praise I gave Elizabeth's can be applied here.

Mary is written as a very approachable character and you want to know what's going to happen to her. I love her little band of four Marys, the girls from Scotland that accompanied her to France, where she's grown up. There are a lot of interesting characters running around, too, like Catherine de Medici, Diane de Poitiers and Nostradamus.

My only criticism is that the book hides her fate. It ends when she's still young, of course, before she even marries Francis. But the epilogue is coy and only hints at bad things. Only in tiny print in the family tree section does it say she was beheaded for treason. Be honest about what she did! Don't try to hide it from readers. Let them decide for themselves how they feel about her knowing the full facts. That sneakiness gives the book a bit of a dishonest feel, which I don't care for. But that doesn't take anything away from the main narrative, the diary itself.

ROYAL DIARIES: ELIZABETH

This was the first of the Royal Diaries, out in 1999. It was also one of the earliest I read. Kathryn Lasky is one of the more well-known Royal Diaries and Dear America authors. She did five Royals (Elizabeth, Mary Queen of Scots, Marie-Antoinette, Jahanara of India and Kazunomiya of Japan), four Dear Americas (including one of the famous ones and one of my favorites), a My America trilogy for younger readers, and one of the male-fronted My Name Is America series. (You may also know her as the Guardians of Ga'hoole author.)

This is one of the main RDs I would recommend to new readers. You can't help but fall in love with Lasky's Elizabeth. She's bursting with character and her diary melds daily life activities with royal intrigue and historical details. It feels like a real diary, because it's very personal, but it also educates like historical fiction. And it takes place during her younger years, which is good for the target audience. For the continuation of her story, try Beware, Princess Elizabeth from Carolyn Meyer's Young Royals series.

I actually don't have much to say about it, because like Josefina's AG books, I love it and there's not much to talk about other than repetitive praise.

TWILIGHT ZONE Anthologies

Thanks to Paperback Swap, I discovered that 1993, 1994 and 1995 gave us three anthologies inspired by The Twilight Zone. I love me some twist endings and most of these stories were awesome. I'm going to list off my faves from each book and not go into detail, because I'm not spoiling anything.

Journeys to the Twilight Zone (1993): Good Boy (my fave), Another Kind of Enchanted Cottage, Outside the Windows (this one is sad but good), Coming of Age

Return to the Twilight Zone (1994): Night of the Living Bra (hilarious), The Kaleidoscope, The Midnight El, Maybe Tomorrow, Gordie's Pets, Lady in Cream-Colored Chiffon, The Duke of Demolition Goes to Hell (interesting idea here that I haven't seen before), The Sole Survivor

Adventures in the Twilight Zone (1995): The Repossessed, Ballad of the Outer Life, The Sacrifice of Shadows, Dead and Naked, My Mother and I Go Shopping, Peace on Earth, My Wiccan, Wiccan Ways, Marticora, Mittens and Hotfoot.  

AMERICAN GIRL: New JOSEFINA Mystery

Well, new-ish. I've had this a couple months, I think, and only just got around to reading it.

I adore Josefina and all her family members. This book has everything I loved about her other books, so it's another great one. And Francisca is full of her usual sass. She's my favorite sister. I think it used to be Clara, but now it's totally Francisca. I'm so her, except with the beauty-obsessed stuff. I don't wanna weave. Ugh. Guests make extra work. Ooh, dancing is fun! Yeah, that's me.

There are a few mysteries going on at the same time. One of them, involving Tia Dolores, is really obvious. Although back in Josefina's time, it probably would have been less obvious to a child her age in her situation. She's not a one-room cabin girl where things are a little harder to hide. The other two are a bit less obvious, but I still had them figured out pretty quickly. It doesn't take away any enjoyment of the book though.

I just love Josefina. I feel like I never say much about her, because all I'm really capable of is love. She makes me feel warm and fuzzy.

AMERICAN GIRL: Marie-Grace and Cécile

The true testament to the lack of popularity these two have is how damn hard it is to find good images online. Loads of the dolls, but barely anything about the books.

AG tried something new with Marie-Grace and Cécile, but I wouldn't consider it a success. This is the first (and hopefully only) time two characters shared the spotlight. This isn't one main character and then her best friend doll comes along later (or with her, in Ivy's case). Both dolls were released together and both girls shared the 6-book series.

The first two books are basically the same story told from two different perspectives. Marie-Grace Gardner was born in New Orleans, but left after her mother and younger brother died to travel with her doctor father for several years before returning finally to New Orleans. Cécile Rey is a free girl of color who comes from a rather affluent family. Cécile switches between French and English frequently, as do many of the other characters, so there's a glossary and pronunciation guide in the back of each book, which I always find helpful. While I like both girls, I didn't think the switch back and forth for the same time period aspect of these two books was necessary. I wish they'd just made this Marie-Grace's meet book, then continued on with their story for Cécile's meet, instead of starting all over again. You're rather cheated out of a book by the method they chose.

The series is different from the previous AG books, because those are far more episodic, while this series runs together. It's like one continuous story broken up into several books. It feels to me now like the precursor to the BeForever books and how they run all together now. (I haven't read any of the tweaked versions, so I don't know how they flow, but this flows more like Maryellen's book than Kirsten or Felicity's original 6-book sets.) The main plotline is the yellow fever epidemic and how it affects both families. The story is good and the characters are strong. I love both girls and their families, although I really wish we'd gotten to know them a bit better.

The only other books the girls have are three mysteries. The Hidden Gold is Marie-Grace's and Cécile's is The Cameo Necklace. Both are excellent, but I wish the girls hadn't been separated. They spend so much of their 6-book series separated that I wish they could have been together more for the mysteries. I think that's one of the reasons this series ultimately failed. It was harder for people to connect to both characters, because they're not given enough screentime both singly and as a best friend set. I love them, but I want to love them even more, because they're nowhere near the level of Felicity, Josefina, Julie and such. The Haunted Opera is the third mystery and that one finally stars both, although it is more Marie-Grace's than Cécile's.

My biggest problem with these books is the art. This is hands down the worst AG art ever. If you look at the three Marie-Grace covers in the first image up there, you can see that poor girl is not drawn flatteringly whatsoever. Only the three mystery covers depict her nicely, but they don't quite capture the character. The doll is one of my favorites and so exquisitely beautiful. On the other hand, Cécile is much more well-favored by the art, but I don't care for her doll. (I don't like the Sonali mold. I just don't.)

AG Best to Least Best (they're too good to be called "Worst") Historical Ranking:
-Josefina
-Felicity
-Kaya
-Marie-Grace and Cécile
-Caroline
-Maryellen

I think these two are underrated, especially compared to later characters like Caroline and Maryellen.

Next up is the Josefina mystery that came out in February and then we'll be moving on to Kirsten and Addy.

STAR DARLINGS 8

Ah, it's the beginning of the month and time for a new Star Darlings book! Last month's Piper book was my favorite of the series, but this one is actually a close second.

I'm just going to hit a few high points, not go chapter by chapter.

Astra and Piper seem like a mismatched pair of friends and they're extremely different, but somehow they still get each other. I love their friendship more than any other in this series so far.

Both girls removed their spelled nail polish last book, so they're trying to get the others to see that they're all acting bizarrely. They finally use Vega's habit of constantly filming everything to show the girls how they've been acting, but they still don't know what's causing it, so for awhile, they're acting funny and it's driving them nuts because they can't stop it. Then Astra figures out it's the nail polish and they try everything to remove it, but realize only Earth nail polish remover will do it. Astra brings some back from her mission and at the end of the book, everyone is finally back to normal. I'm hoping this is the last personality-altering thing we deal with.

Then we've got the Ophelia mystery. Astra overhears Lady Stella talking to a hooded woman and after that woman leaves, she confronts Lady Stella about it. Lady Stella fakes an answer and Astra goes on to ask about Ophelia. Lady Cordial appears and says that the orphanage Ophelia came from found a family willing to adopt her, so she got pulled from school to handle the details. Neither adult can come up with the proper name for Ophelia's orphanage and Astra remembers both. After dealing with another power outage of sorts, Astra makes it to SD class, only to learn the class is cancelled because the prof is stuck in their version of an elevator. The girls discuss Ophelia, but get distracted handling the personality alteration thing, but later Astra tries calling one of the orphanages and they say they can only give info out in person. Field trip for Astra and Piper! They go to that orphanage and Ophelia is not a student there...or rather, she is, but it's not their Ophelia. They also meet a nice boy named Leebeau, who's a fan of Astra and Astra quite possibly ends up with a crush on him. I think this is the first mention of boys in the book series, unlike Libby's obsessive boy talk in the webisodes. Astra and Piper have to rush back to school, because it's time for the next wish mission.

Astra is chosen, of course, and Piper says she'll keep looking for Ophelia while Astra is gone. She's going to ask Leona for help, since Leona was so close to Ophelia. Astra's mission is pretty fun, although I prefer Piper's. Astra gets a bit too distracted by sports, but her take on things is fun and her power is teleporting, which is awesome. She identifies her wisher pretty quickly and almost gets the wish right, but it takes a visit from Libby to put her in the right direction. There's an interesting bit where the girls are being kept from opening the auditorium doors. A "strange sickly gray mist" is around the door handle and Libby gets the brilliant idea to use her power crystal. It dissolves the mist, Astra successfully completes her mission, gets her power crystal, and brings back nail polish remover for everyone.

Then Piper and Leona announce that they found Ophelia. She's a student at a school, not an orphanage, and she really wanted to go to Starling Academy, but she bombed everything. Then she received a holotext saying she could attend if she pretended to be someone else. Cassie asks who the holotexts came from and Ophelia responds, "Lady Stella, of course."

So now we've solved the current personality alteration problem and the mystery of Ophelia only to have Lady Stella fall under suspicion. The first chapter of Tessa's book, in which she's already annoying me with her easily distracted, stubborn, food is more important than actual important things ways, has the SD girls discussing Lady Stella. Scarlet is convinced she's behind it and she makes good points, because it has to be someone in power to have done the Scarlet/Ophelia flip. Tessa is convinced it's not her, so it will be interesting to see which girls fall on which side. Cassie seems to be with Scarlet and Sage with Tessa. Leona also seems to be with Cassie and Scarlet, which is a switch.

Things are getting good!