Available:*
Library | Call Number | Status |
---|---|---|
Searching... Stillwater Public Library | J FICTION HIG | Searching... Unknown |
Bound With These Titles
On Order
Summary
Summary
Fifteen-year-old Eugenie de La Roque escapes the French Revolution with little more than her precious dog and the clothes on her back. Along with her family, she sails to America, hoping to find glorious French Azilum amid the wilderness of Pennsylvania. But when they arrive, they discover that the village awaiting them is nothing like the festive balls or carefully manicured gardens they've left behind.
Hannah Kimbrell is a young Quaker who has been chosen to help prepare the settlement for the arrival of the aristocrats. But in truth she wants nothing more than to be home with her mother and baby brother. Her homesickness is only deepened by the demands of the newly arrived French nobles, who are dismayed to find that simple log cabins are their only protection against the coming winter.
In this wild place away from home and the memories they hold dear, Eugenie and Hannah find more in common than they first realize. A story of friendship against all odds, Waiting for the Queen is a loving portrait of the values of early America, and a reminder that true nobility is more than a royal title.
Author Notes
Joanna Higgins is the author of A Soldier's Book , Dead Center , and The Importance of High Places (Milkweed Editions), a collection of short stories. She received her PhD from SUNY-Binghamton, where she studied under John Gardner. An adoptive mother of two children, Higgins lives with her family in upstate New York. Waiting for the Queen is her fist book for young readers.
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Adult author Higgins's first work for children opens in 1793 Pennsylvania, while the French Revolution rages abroad. Fifteen-year-old noblewoman Eugenie de La Roque has just arrived at a French settlement in America with her family, distraught after her chateau was burned to the ground. Like her countrymen, Eugenie holds out hope that the queen, Marie Antoinette, will also escape the bloodshed. Hannah Kimbrell, a 13-year-old Quaker, has been chosen to help serve Eugenie's family, in order to support her own family. Hannah is confounded by the French refugees' language and their condescending and spoiled behavior, while Eugenie objects to the basic living conditions and the Quakers' simple, unsophisticated ways. When the girls witness a Frenchman's mistreatment of his slaves, they put aside their differences and work together to build a solid community. The story shifts between Hannah and Eugenie's well-developed and distinct perspectives, both of which strongly reflect their respective upbringings and cultures. A meticulously detailed work of historical fiction about the challenges of the new and unfamiliar, and about looking beyond oneself toward the greater good. Ages 8-13. (Sept.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Horn Book Review
In late-eighteenth-century rural Pennsylvania, Hannah, a Quaker, and Eugenie, a young French noblewoman, make an unlikely pair; they bond in risking their lives to help several escaped slaves. Alternating chapters depict both girls' points of view and reveal the characters' growth. Though the writing is inexpert, the book lends an interesting perspective. An author's note explains the real-life inspiration. Bib. (c) Copyright 2014. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
Everyone in New France, a village in Pennsylvania, awaits Queen Marie Antoinette's arrival--as soon as she escapes the French Revolution. The ridiculously overdressed and sadly inept nobles and their families who have fled France with little but their lives believe that their queen will provide needed civility to the village their American hirelings are carving out of the Pennsylvania wilderness for them. Eugenie, 15 and haunted by the horrors they've escaped, arrives unprepared for the harshly primitive conditions they find, and she's annoyed by her unrealistic mother's matchmaking with an unpleasant young noble. In alternating chapters, her story is contrasted with that of Quaker Hannah, who, like her father and brother, has been hired to help the French out for a year but whose faith keeps her from the subservience the noblemen demand. The French have been joined by a Caribbean slaveholder and his four brutally mistreated slaves; this provides a catalyst for a developing friendship between the two girls, in spite of disdainful Maman's rejection of the American girl and her competently down-to-earth ways. The gradual, believable changes in both girls' characters add an appealing dimension to an engrossing depiction of this little-known episode. Based on actual events and richly immersive in the feel of the period, this effort rises above sometimes-awkward exposition to create a well-rounded, satisfying historical tale. (Historical fiction. 11-14)]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
It's a long way from the court of Versailles to the Pennsylvania wilderness in 1793, and a brutal culture shock for Eugenie, her parents, and other nobility who fled the French Revolution. Their arrival jolts young Quaker Hannah, who hires on with family to assist the expats and is expected to curtsy and act subservient to the royals. Higgins bases her story on an actual Pennsylvania settlement of French gentry who fled their homeland. Eugenie and Hannah narrate alternating chapters, offering sharply contrasting glimpses of what the French and Americans each held dear. The French naively await the arrival of Marie Antoinette, and their superior attitudes will incense readers who will figure that the royals are lucky to have gotten out with their heads. Eugenie's and Hannah's thought processes carry the story forward as they wrestle with notions of justice and gradually come together in friendship. Eugenie's transformation may seem a bit over the top as she embraces liberte, egalite, and fraternite, but the unique setting offers a fresh look at early America.--O'Malley, Anne Copyright 2010 Booklist
Excerpts
Excerpts
1793 Novembre / November Eugenie A cold wind gusts through these American mountains, ruffling the churning river and further impeding the progress of our boats. On a map Papa showed us in Philadelphia, the river bears the Indian name Susquehanna as it meanders down through eastern Pennsylvania like gathered blue stitching on green fabric. The looping is most definitely accurate. But today the river is not blue; rather, nearly black. And the mountains are not green, but in their sheery drapery of fog and mist, a dismal gray. Often a cask slides by, carried swiftly by the current. Or there might be great tree limbs with a few tufts of leaves that seem torn bits of flag. Our flag, I imagine in my fatigue. The flag of our beloved La France. Cold penetrates wool and velvet and settles upon my shoulders like stones. Ah, the marquis's perfidy! Talon promised fine dwellings, but where are they? We have been traveling, now, for a week upon this wilderness river. He promised a French town, but where is it? I lean to my trembling pet and wrap my cloak more securely about her. " Courage, Sylvette. Soon we shall learn if the marquis is a man of honor or not." Sylvette curls herself tightly against me, shivering in spasms. I try to comfort her, but a settlement appears along a bank that causes me to tremble as well--forest scraped clear for a few meters, and six rude log dwellings there, earthen colored. Smoke rises from chimneys, mingling with low cloud. Someone on a landing gestures toward our boats. Mon Dieu! Can this be our promised town? I close my eyes and hold onto Sylvette. When I open my eyes again, the settlement is behind us. Merci, my Lady. Fear eases its hold. I scratch behind Sylvette's ears, feel the warmth of her. She hides under her paw and dozes. By now it must be midafternoon. Early this morning we embarked from the usual sort of camp we've been seeing along this river, merely a few board houses surrounded by a cluster of squat log huts more like caves. Last evening and again early this morning, several ill-clothed women and children emerged from these dark dwellings to stare at us. Maman ignores the uncouth gaping Americans. I do as well. But when a child ran up to Papa, wanting to touch his fur-trimmed cloak, Papa leaned down and lifted the boy high into the air and swung him down again. The child ran off, but not far. "Au revior!" Papa called. The urchin smiled and threw himself at Papa again, and again Papa swung him upward. This time the child reached for the feathers on Papa's high-crowned hat, but Papa set him down before he could tear them off. Then Papa took a coin from his waistcoat and gave it to him. Maman pretended to see nothing of this. How these people bring to mind our peasants, the way they watch us. The boy's mother finally pulled him away as if we were evil. For such reasons and many others, the journey north from the port of Philadelphia has been distressing--the first hundred or so miles in a bumping coach to the river town of Harrisburg, and now these low boats and rainswollen river. And along the way, poor inns, poor food, and poor sleep, I tossing about on thin mattresses stuffed with crackling straw, tormented by dreams that always leave me exhausted. And then the dreams' poisonous residue taints my days as well. But the dipping boats lull, and it is difficult to keep my eyes open. I give in to temptation and am, at once, back at our château in the Rhône-et-Loire. The fields an orange sea, flames rising upon it like waves. I run down stone steps into a cellar. Maman! I call. Papa! But no sound issues from my throat. The cellar becomes a charred field, and I see a farm cart surrounded by peasants on the road bordering the field. In the cart, my beloved maid and companion, Annette. Then smoke rises from the cart. Spikes of flame. Peasants move back. The air around the cart brightens with fire. I force my eyes open and the scene shrivels as if it, too, has burned. "Ah, Sylvette." Her white fur warms my cheek, catches my tears. Why, Papa, I remember asking, did they do that to my Annette? Because of her royal blood. Do they hate us so, then? I think--yes. But what have we done to them, Papa? Perhaps it may not be what we have done, so much, but what we have failed to do. And that is, Papa? Treat them as we treat one another. Excerpted from Waiting for the Queen: A Novel of Early America by Joanna Higgins All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.