Citation: Myers, D. (1999). At Her Majesty's Request: An African Princess in Victorian England. Scholastic.
Annotation
The intriguing, unlikely life journey story of a young African princess rescued by an English sailor from certain death, traveled to England and became a close friend of Queen Victoria.
Nomination
While the story told is unique and extraordinary, it is, in many ways, confusing to the average reader. The author affects a patronizing tone that is off-putting to readers and includes many superfluous details where more historical content could have increased the story. The letters chosen to augment the telling of the princess, Sarah’s, journey portray the child as very ungrateful and entitled while doing little to enhance the story. The biography genre is meant to inspire those to become better than others or to tell a little-known story; however, this book fails to do either one. The target age group for this book, grades 4-8, would have a hard time following such a drawn out, detailed story that contains very little for students to empathize with or relate to.
The young princess does grow into an adult missionary, though she is forced into a loveless marriage and relocated back to her home continent, but not her home country. The author does a good job of explaining the idea of “good marriages” in that time period and the importance of a young girl to marry well. However, the only novelty this book provides is highlighting the unlikely occurrence of a white monarch taking a young black girl under her wing, further emphasizing the divide between the races. It was emphasized several times in the book how unusual this practice was and almost seemed as if the author didn’t feel the child deserved it. The princess did nothing to earn her good fortune, nor did she do anything to repay the kindness shown, so her journey was nothing but a good stroke of luck for her. Overall, readers simply learn about an abnormal practice in a long list of abnormalities that perpetuated the reigns of British monarchs, but no inspirational story exists in this book.
Genre: Biography
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