A Brief History of Montmaray

By Cooper, Michelle Pearson

Publishers Summary:
“There’s a fine line between gossip and history, when one is talking about kings.”Sophie Fitzosborne lives in a crumbling castle in the tiny island kingdom of Montmaray with her eccentric and impoverished royal family. When she receives a journal for her sixteenth birthday, Sophie decides to chronicle day-to-day life on the island. But this is 1936, and the news that trickles in from the mainland reveals a world on the brink of war. The politics of Europe seem far away from their remote island—until two German officers land a boat on Montmaray. And then suddenly politics become very personal indeed.A Brief History of Montmaray is a heart-stopping tale of loyalty, love, and loss, and of fighting to hold on to home when the world is exploding all around you.“Once in a while, a special book will cross our paths and make us grateful for life and the ability to read. I’m talking about A Brief History of Montmaray by Michelle Cooper. I’m calling her Australia’s next stroke of literary brilliance.”—Viewpoint

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ISBN
978-0-37585-864-2
Publisher
Knopf Books for Young Readers


REVIEWS

School Library Journal

Reviewed on December 1, 2009

Gr 7-10 It's 1936, and 16-year-old Sophie FitzOsborne lives on the edge of poverty in an island castle off the coast of England. With her cousin Veronica; her younger sister, Henry; a dog named Carlos; and her reclusive Uncle Johnthe mad king of Montmarayfor company, Sophie spends her days helping her cousin and the few remaining servants keep house wh...Log In or Sign Up to Read More

Horn Book Magazine

Reviewed on November 1, 2009  |  

On a rainswept rock in the Bay of Biscay, Princess Sophia FitzOsborne keeps a journal of a few fateful months—October 1936 to January 1937—in the history of her family's crumbling island kingdom with its six subjects. Her shell-shocked uncle, King John, spends his days abed or throwing things; her lovely cousin Veronica works devotedly in the royal archives in between sparring matches with the housekeeper's ...Log In or Sign Up to Read More

Horn Book Guide

Reviewed on January 1, 2009

Princess Sophia FitzOsborne keeps a journal describing her family's crumbling island kingdom (fictional) with its six subjects. When...Log In or Sign Up to Read More

Junior Library Guild

Reviewed on January 1, 2010

Thanks to the romantic isolation of the setting and the narration’s poetic but lucid prose, the story of Montmaray’s last royal generation feels both immediate and timeless. While its central characters experience boredom, loneliness, and loss, the novel never dips too long into m...Log In or Sign Up to Read More

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