Beccia (Who Put the B in the Ballyhoo?
) lures tweens to examine history by exploding well-enshrined myths about European royals: Marie Antoinette never said, “Let them eat cake,” and Napoleon was in fact taller than the average northern European of his day. Her stylish mélange of witty illustrations—silhouettes with speech bubbles, dramatic tableaux, caricatures—and interactive text demands reader participation: rather than provide a historical narrative, the author presents statements as true-or-false quizzes, then theorizes why a rumor might have come to exist. Beccia's language achieves that fine line between appealing to kids and condescending to them: on the subject of bear-baiting, she writes, “Parents think today's video games are violent, but they should have seen what the Elizabethan kids did for fun.” The book runs heavy on Henry VIII, his wives and daughters, with fully 28 pages devoted to them; while this emphasis seems lopsided, it also allows Beccia to demonstrate a closer interpretation of specific events and to show how subjective history can be. Ages 9-12. (Sept.)
