Book clubs will have a great discussion with this book! Takes place during the French Revolution. A poor French girl becomes the official royal lacemaker to Therese, the young daughter of Marie Antoinette. But can the girls' friendship survive the rumblings of revolution?

posted Apr 4, 2011 at 11:03AM

Book clubs will have a great discussion with this book! Takes place during the French Revolution. A poor French girl becomes the official royal lacemaker to Therese, the young daughter of Marie Antoinette. But can the girls' friendship survive the rumblings of revolution?

posted Apr 4, 2011 at 11:03AM

I picked up The Lacemaker and the Princess and decided to read it after liking the opening: "When the Princess of Lamballe’s lace was ready, Grand-mere decided that I should deliver it. Not because I was responsible--I was not, as she often reminded me. Not because she trusted me--she did not, as I well knew. It was because I was worthless..." I really enjoyed the book. Isabelle, an 11-yr-old lacemaker, catches the eye of Marie Antoinette after being pushed around and brushed off by a crowd eager to catch a glimpse of her, and the queen cleans her up, feeds her, and offers her as the day’s playmate for her lonely 9-yr-old daughter, Therese. There’s a historical basis to the story: Therese did have a "hired friend" whose parents were poor, Ernestine (not her real name, but what the queen and Therese insisted on calling her, because it was more fashionable). Ernestine’s in the book, but is absent on the day Isabelle (who becomes "Clochette" when she’s at Versailles, as it, too, is more fashionable) is introduced to Therese--and the three become the strange sort of friends one might become when two are poor and one is the daughter of a queen. The girls are treated like royalty (dressed in finery, feasted) while at the palace, and their loyalty is hugely important to Therese, who insists they not talk about their lives outside lest she be reminded that their "friendship" did not come about naturally. Over the course of the book, Isabelle’s class consciousness grows--at first, she’s dazzled by and in love with the wild extravagance that she now gets to partake of at times. But revolution is brewing, her groomsman brother George warns her, and it turns out that Isabelle is with the king and his family in the palace during the Women’s March on Versailles. I enjoyed & think kids will enjoy the description of life in Versailles--the palace stench, the 40 servants whose only job is to replace guttering candles with fresh ones--and will add this book to my list of go-to historical fiction titles to recommend when kids come in with an assignment to read some.

posted Nov 3, 2012 at 12:56PM

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