Anna of Byzantium

Anna of Byzantium by Tracy Barrett, 1999 Laurel-Leaf Books

     Anna Comnena is the firstborn child of her father and chosen to inherit his Byzantine Empire. She has no worries when a baby brother is born because she has been training for this her entire life.
     Neither the selected princess, her father, or her diplomacy instructor - her father's mother, Dowager Empress Irene - put much store in visiting envoys and their insistence that only a male heir can rule the empire. Anna and her grandmother continue her education and the princess becomes a talented statesman.
     As she grows, Anna's talents soon threaten her grandmother and the Dowager Empress uses her pull with the Emperor to remove Anna from succession. When she discovers the betrayal Anna Comnena must use the skills her grandmother helped her develop in order to take back that which is her birthright.
     Anna faces her grandmother, the influence of the barbarian envoys, and an ever-changing political landscape while fighting to win back her kingdom. But will she succeed, or with the political machinations take away everything she's work her entire life for?
     Readers who enjoyed The Royal Diaries series will follow the fiction of Anna's story as she goes through significant life changes.

Mary, Bloody Mary

Mary, Bloody Mary by Carolyn Meyer, 1999 Gulliver Books

     Princess Mary Tudor is the daughter of Catherine of Aragon and King Henry VIII of England. She is his only legitimate child when her story begins and she is betrothed to the young King of France. When Anne Boleyn catches her father's eye he requests an annulment from Queen Catherine which would make Princess Mary a bastard and remove her social standing. Mary is sent from court to Ludlow and the queen is sent to the north.
     When the king makes a drastic move and separates from the Catholic Church to form his own church, then become its leader, he finally gains the power to divorce Catherine. Henry marries Anne and their union is followed by a daughter, Elizabeth. The king creates a Dual Oath which forswears the Catholic faith to declare Henry the head of the church and Anne's children the heirs to the throne.
     Anyone who refuses to swear is declared a traitor, but Mary has a promise to her mother to uphold. Anne comes after the deposed princess to strengthen her position, but Mary survives while hundreds of Catholic citizens are slaughtered for their faith.
     Meyer's novel is based in history and looks at one of England's most tumultuous eras from the vantage of a young woman at the center of the upheaval. This portrayal of Bloody Mary Tudor imagines the events which shaped her entire life and how they affect teenaged Mary. Middle level readers can relate to a girl who feels like such an outcast as her life changes drastically.

First Test

First Test by Tamora Pierce, 1999 Random House

     After Alanna the Lioness hid her sex for eight years to become Tortall's first female knight King Jonathan proclaimed girls welcome to train as knights along with their brothers. In the ten years since no noble family has had a daughter willing or desirous of going through such trials, so when Keladry of Mindelan and her parents petition the crown it is a battle to allow her tutelage under the Training Master. Alanna champions the girl, but is forbidden meeting her or showing such support.
     Kel idolizes Alanna and has only dreamed of following her footsteps. When she is notified of the Master at Arms' condition Kel is furious, but her time as a diplomat's daughter has trained her well. Lord Wyldon gives Kel one year--if she proves herself up to snuff she may stay, but the entire academy seems to be looking for any excuse to throw her out.
     With the threat hovering constantly, and the very obvious absence of her hero, Kel must prove to herself and her classmates that she can make it in the men's world as a girl.
     Kel is a powerful young woman, as many of pierce's protagonists, her resourcefulness and tenacity earn her respect and friends in the all-male world. Readers of all ages will enjoy her spirit.

Just Ella

Just Ella by Margaret Peterson Haddix, 1999 Aladdin Books

     Prince Charming has proposed and Cinderella said yes. Now Ella Brown has been swept away from her stepmother and stepsisters to what should be a paradise--no chores, beautiful clothes, and a future as queen. But being a princess isn't all she expected it to be. Princess lessons and palace etiquette are suffocating and Ella has little time to herself.
     What would be the time she and her fiance spent getting to know each other is spent with the prince staring at her like a piece of art or treating her as a mirror to his own glorification. Add to that her lack of power as a noblewoman and life back home is looking better and better.
     The only bright spots are Mary, a serving girl from the kitchens, and Jed, Ella's history tutor who stands in for his father. They become her only friends and the support that gets her through living in the bleak palace. When Ella becomes suspicious that Jed is using her connection to support a refugee camp he wants to create, they have a falling out and Jed admits to falling in love with her.
     When Ella falls out of love with the prince's boyish selfishness she asks to end their engagement. Prince Charming becomes violent toward her, and her decorum tutor and chaperon has her taken to the dungeon to change her mind. The treatment only encourages Ella to escape and she does through a sewage hole in the dungeon floor.
     Once free, Ella Brown tries to find the refugee camp Jed has made a reality. When she arrives he is delighted to see her, and proposes, but Ella is marriage-shy and asks for time. In the camp she learns to live her values and support the people around her--she is more than just a pretty face and has the ability to both affect change and help the people she cares for.
     In the end Ella Brown goes from princess and noblewoman to a noble woman caring for the people around her. Young readers will enjoy her spunk and compassion in Haddix's take on a classic fairy tale.

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling, 1999 Bloomsbury

     After nearly being killed by a book, Harry Potter is seeing strange shapes in the shadows. First a cloaked figure then a large, shaggy dog, but things are getting out of hand when one of the strangely cloaked figures attacks him while Harry and his cousin, Dudley, are in a public playground. Harry is sent an owl from the Ministry of Magic and scolded for his use of magic in front of a Muggle.
     When Aunt Marge comes to visit she, like the rest of her family, demeans Harry's parents and Harry himself. In a fit of rage Harry unwittingly uses magic to inflate her like a helium balloon and escapes in the aftermath. He is picked up by the Knight Bus and travels to Diagon Alley where he runs into the Minister of Magic himself. Fudge asks Harry to spend the rest of his summer in Diagon Alley where he may be protected and looked after.
     As he takes the train back to Hogwarts with Ron and Hermione, Harry discovers that Fudge wanted him accounted for because Sirius Black, Harry's Godfather and a convicted murderer has escaped from Azkaban Prison. Nearly everyone assumes Black plans to murder Harry and the Ministry has sent Dementors to patrol the school and surrounding areas.
     The Dementors are soul-sucking hooded creatures capable of stealing an individual's happiness and making them relive their worst memories. When one appears on the train, the new Defense Against the Dark Arts' Professor Lupin defends the trio and helps them recover with chocolate. It is not the first or last time Harry encounters the Dementors: he falls nearly fifty feet during a Quidditch match when a group swarms him. The problems urge Harry to take lessons from Lupin on a patronus charm, which repels the creatures.
     Third Years are offered the opportunity to visit the nearby town of Hogsmeade, but when Harry doesn't have permission from his guardian he is confined to the grounds. Fred and George Weasley, however, have other plans and deliver into Harry's possession the Maurader's Map. The Map was created by Mooney, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs in years gone by and shows the location of any person within Hogwarts grounds, as well as passages off campus. Harry uses the map and his father's invisibility cloak to sneak into Hogsmeade where he meets up with Ron and Hermione. On one such trip Harry overhears several professors speaking about Black: how he betrayed Harry's parents, his true relationship to Harry, how he murdered not only muggles but friend Peter Pettigrew, and how he is thought to be working for Voldemort.
     The boys' relationship with Hermione is strained when she reports Harry's Christmas gift of a state-of-the-art broomstick (to replace his Nimbus 2000 after it was destroyed by the Whomping Willow), and only made worse when Ron thinks her cat ate his rat. But when Hagrid needs their support, the friends reconcile to be there for him as Buckbeak the Hippogriff is executed for attacking Malfoy (but not without reason).
     Harry, Ron, and Hermione go to the gamekeeper's cottage where they hear the axe of Buckbeak's execution. As they prepare to leave Ron's rat flees and Ron chases after him, only to be dragged down a tunnel beneath the Whomping Willow by a large black dog that has been following Harry about.
     Hermione and Harry follow where they discover Sirius Black with Ron. Lupin interrupts their standoff to explain the situation. Lupin is a werewolf and his friends became animagi, wizards who could transform into a chosen animal, so they might spend time with their friend. James Potter became a stag, Sirius Black became a large black dog, and Peter Pettigrew transformed into a rat. That rat became Scabbers, Ron's pet. Old feuds break out among the three remaining friends and Pettigrew escapes. Harry, Ron and Hermione must hurry to make it back to the castle as Lupin transforms into his were-self and Sirius chases him away from the children. They run into several Dementors and wake in the hospital wing.
     Dumbledore explains that Black is awaiting the Dementor's Kiss, which sucks the soul out of a person's body, and Harry and Hermione must go back with Hermione's Time Turner to save the day. They manage to save Buckbeak and themselves and arrive back in their hospital wing beds when Dumbledore returns with the news that Black has escaped.
     The trio's third year at Hogwarts is full of caution and the results of misrepresented facts. Though Black was not the one to betray the Potters, he feels guilty for being unable to stop them. The guilt has sentenced him to twelve years in the wizarding world's high security prison, a punishment beyond his perceived crimes. Yet when the truth is revealed, he relieves himself of that guilt to become the man James Potter made godfather to his only son. Without Harry's search for the truth and Sirius' insistence he must repay the debt to his only remaining family, Sirius Black might have continued to live in a self-imposed prison.
     This story illustrates the power of forgiveness and how strongly guilt can hold a person in thrall. It is aimed at young adults from middle school age through adulthood. Though some concepts of time travel can be difficult for young readers to understand, the ideas behind them and that the travel supports are simple and easily explained.

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J.K. Rowling, 1999 Bloomsbury Publishing

     Harry returns to the Dursleys' house for the summer after his first spectacular year at Hogwarts. Very few things have changed: Harry is still at the beck and call of his aunt, uncle, and cousin, but he has been moved from the cupboard under the stairs to the upstairs second bedroom. While the Dursleys are hosting a dinner party a house-elf, Dobby, appears to Harry and attempts to warn him away from returning to Hogwarts. However Dobby's methods only cause more problems at the Dursley home encouraging Harry to return to school at the earliest opportunity.
     That opportunity is presented when Ron, Fred, and George Weasley steal their father's flying car and break Harry out of Number 4 Privet Drive. Harry spends the rest of the summer at the Burrow with the Weasley family.
     Preparations for school go awry when Harry mispronounces Diagon Alley and the Floo network (magical transportation from fireplace to fireplace) sends him to the dark-arts center, Knockturn Alley. Hagrid rescues him and returns Harry to the Weasleys in Diagon Alley. Harry and Ron's family meet Gilderoy Lockheart--a famous wizard taking up the position of Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor at Hogwarts--who insists upon a picture with Harry for the papers. Returning to Hogwarts is again difficult for Harry and Ron when the barrier onto the Platform refuses to let them through; they borrow the flying car again, following the train, but crash into the Womping Willow when they try to land it. They manage to make it to Hogwarts, but Mrs. Weasley sends Ron a Howler proclaiming her displeasure to the entire banquet hall and threatening to yank him out of school if he misbehaves.
     Harry, Ron, and Hermione discover that his fame is all Lockheart is willing to talk about and his classes become monuments to his accomplishment, rather than teaching opportunities. Things get even stranger than normal at Hogwarts when Mrs. Norris, the caretaker Filtch's cat, is petrified and someone writes in blood on the wall "The Chamber of Secrets has been opened, enemies of the heir beware." The trio does some research and discovers Salazar Slytherin had created the Chamber of Secrets during the building of Hogwarts, it houses a monster only the heir can control.
     Harry comes under suspicion when he speaks Parseltongue at a meeting of Lockheart's dueling club--Slytherin was known for his ability to speak Parseltongue. When Harry finds Nearly Headless Nick and an annoying Gryffindor first-year petrified he becomes the number one suspect. Harry and his friends suspect Malfoy and disguise themselves as Crabbe and Goyle to test their theory. Malfoy is not the heir, but he reveals the chamber was opened fifty years before. Things are quiet but soon a mysterious journal appears in a flooded bathroom. Harry writes in the journal and it writes back: it houses the spirit of Tom Riddle, a student who, fifty years previously, falsely accused Hagrid of opening the Chamber of Secrets getting Hagrid expelled.
     It isn't until Hermione is petrified and sent to the Hospital Wing that the boys learn what the creature is or how it travels the castle. The basilisk slinks through Hogwarts at the beck and call of the heir and those lucky enough to escape its direct glance are simply frozen in place rather than immediately killed. But with Hermione lost Harry and Ron hurry to find Hagrid, hoping to discover the heir before he or she can do more damage to the school. Before they can speak to him, Hagrid is taken to Azkaban prison for opening the Chamber and releasing its terrors on the school. His only advice is to "follow the spiders" as they flee Slytherin's creature. Harry and Ron follow the spiders into the Forbidden Forest where they come across Aragog, a giant spider and pet of Hagrid's. Aragog points them to the girl killed fifty years before, a girl found in a bathroom. The only answer is Moaning Myrtle, a ghost living in the bathroom where she died.
     Harry and Ron drag an escaping Lockheart along with them as they enter Myrtle's bathroom. Using Parseltongue, Harry opens the chamber, but must leave Ron with an incapacitated Lockheart when he causes a cave-in with Ron's broken wand. Within the chamber proper, Harry discovers a semi-solid Tom Riddle over Ginny's prone form. Riddle tricked Ginny into opening the chamber and acting for him until he was strong enough to reform and take over his inheritance. Riddle calls the basilisk to kill Harry, who cannot fight back as he cannot look at the creature.
     Dumbledore's phoenix, Fawkes, appears with the sorting hat and blinds the basilisk, infuriating Riddle. The phoenix drops the hat and it produces Godric Gryffindor's sword, giving Harry a chance against the giant serpent. He defeats the creature, but is bitten by one of its poison fangs. Fawkes's tears heal Harry's wound, but Riddle is solid and attacks him. Harry stabs the journal with the basilisk fang and it bleeds ink as Riddle disintegrates into nothing.
     Harry and Ginny return to the cave-in and, with Lockheart and Ron, the school where they reunite with the Weasleys. Ron and Harry are commended, the basilisk's victims are revived, and all returns to normal. Harry confronts Lucius Malfoy, Draco's father, for slipping the journal to Ginny and tricks him into releasing Dobby the house-elf, earning Dobby's eternal gratitude. Harry reluctantly returns to the Dursley home for the summer holidays.
     In this second novel, Harry encounters a crisis of identity: while he knows he is not the perpetrator of the crimes, his entire school is not so convinced and the evidence against him grows. Harry must deal with the difference between what he knows to be true and what the people around him believe, yet he manages to maintain his sense of self, listening to his mentors' advice--we are a sum of our choices, rather than our abilities. Dobby's appearance and the accompanying prejudices mirrors challenges of race and personhood that appear throughout our society, as do the issues of magical and non-magical beings and their access to the magical world. One major theme that is magnified through Lockheart and Riddle's Diary is the acceptance of information without looking into motivations or biases. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets is about muddling through appearances and deciding whom to become based on personal wants and desires, rather than the dictates of society. The ideal audience is older elementary to middle school, though anyone can find something enjoyable in the story.