The Lacemaker And The Princess (by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley)

Category is: "a middle grade book that doesn’t take place in the U.S. or the UK" and thus I read this middle-grade historical novel about a young lacemaker named Isabelle who encounters Marie Antoinette one day, and becomes a companion to her daughter. This is based on a real story about a commoner who did become a companion to Marie-Therese at Versailles.

This novel shows the French revolution from both sides: on the one hand, Isabelle lives in the palace, where the royal family is kind to her; on the other she lives in relative poverty, and Isabelle's brother George has revolutionary ideas and works for the Marquis de Lafayette (who I definitely did not envision as Daveed Diggs, similarly to how I definitely did not envision Marie Antoinette as Kirsten Dunst).

This was a solid middle-grade offering, which made me want to go back and reread Antonia Fraser's biography of Antoinette and also visit Versailles. It's 2020, so I can do the former, but not the latter. Someday!