Anne Boleyn and Me - The Diary of Elinor Valjean, London 1525-1536 by Alison Prince

Anne Boleyn and Me by Alison Prince is part of the My Story series. The story is about eleven year old, Elinor Valjean. Elinor lives as a member of the royal court under the reign of King Henry VIII. Her mother is Queen Catherine's friend and favourite lady in waiting while her father is court jester. The story is set in London through 1525 to 1536 when Henry VIII wanted to divorce his wife, Catherine of Aragon and marry Anne Boleyn. The story follows the conflicts and the rise and fall of Catherine and Anne Boleyn through the eyes of a young servant girl.

The My Story series is one of my favourite historical fiction series and this book was one of the best of the series. It provided a very insightful look into that time period and I learnt so much. The book even made me empathise with characters that I probably wouldn't have if I was researching about Henry VII and his divorces through the internet or through a history textbook. 

 

Apart from the story itself there are a few points I would like to make. Firstly, don't be discouraged by some of the book covers. Although, the  most recent publications have really nice covers, the one I read still had a very ancient looking cover. The cover looked very out dated and even though the story was supposed to be set in the past the cover really made me doubt the story or even if was part of the same my story series that I had previously read. Now, what I really liked was that after the diary entries of Anne Boley there was a timeline of events and a historical note by the author. I was always referring back to the timeline when I got confused throughout the novel and at the end of the book when I read the historical note everything became clearer. Elinor Valjean and her situations are all fictional so it is good to clear up what really happened and what was made up as well as some of the details that ElinorValjean wouldn't know in her time or situation. 

This book was a very quick and easy read however a great addition to the My Story series. It is a simple book so it is probably better for school students, however there was so much detail that, at least I, learnt a lot. Alison Prince did a great job with the plot because it was very easy to follow- both the fictional and real aspect of the story- and kept me very interested to know more about it.