Ain, Beth Levin. The revolution of Sabine.

AIN, Beth Levin. The revolution of Sabine. Candlewick. 214p. c2008. 978-0-7636-3396-7 $16.99. JS

Having just recovered from the long HBO series about John Adams, I was interested to see the period of the American Revolution from the point of view of French citizens, enamored of the visiting Ben Franklin. Sabine is a young woman of marriageable age in a upper-class French household in Paris. From a young age, she has been best friends with Michel the son of her beloved nanny, as they were raised together as playmates in the same household. When the children became adolescents, the parents thought to separate them before any romantic ideas between them took hold. Now, Sabine is being pressured to make a good marriage, while she hungers for something more in life. Michel has been in the household of French intellectuals who long for some revolution of their own. The Marquis de Lafayette is a hero, and Michel longs to go to America to fight with him on the side of the Americans against the British king. He urges Sabine to come to America too, to make a new life together. To give Ain credit, she leaves the ending complicated, not tied up neatly.

Along the way, Sabine reads Voltaire's Candide and Thomas Paine's Common Sense, works that were turning worlds upside down. Ain is good at developing the themes of personal freedom along-side political freedom. Sabine is a young woman who seeks freedom from the restrictions placed on her by her family's expectations, her social standing, her gender. Any YA reader can quickly understand Sabine's "revolution." Claire Rosser, KLIATT

J--Recommended for junior high school students. The contents are of particular interest to young adolescents and their teachers.

S--Recommended for senior high school students.