Anastasia's Album

Designed to resemble a scrapbook, this striking, profusely illustrated volume presents a sympathetic and affecting portrait of the youngest daughter of Tsar Nicholas II, the last Romanov ruler (see Children's Books, Oct. 7). Brewster juxtaposes remarkably pristine period photos (some artfully hand-colored by Anastasia) with Christopher's carefully composed shots of the palaces the family inhabited and of several family possessions: a doll, a Faberge egg, a Red Cross uniform worn by one of Anastasia's sisters. His prose is equally atmospheric: Anastasia at three is ""a blue-eyed whirlwind."" Well-chosen excerpts from Anastasia's own correspondence and from memoirs by Romanov friends and staff heighten Anastasia's very real presence in these pages. This immediacy renders the sudden end to the siblings' carefree youth, and eventually the Romanovs' violent deaths in Siberia in 1918, all the more tragic and haunting. Ages 7-up. (Oct.)