I’m not sure which seems less likely, that E.L. Konigsburg would have written A Proud Taste for Scarlet and Miniver, a children’s fictional biography of Eleanor of Aquitaine, or that Your Humble Blogger would never have heard of it before two weeks ago?
I admit to a soft spot for Eleanor, inherited from my mother, who adores her. And I certainly sought out books by Ms. Konigsburg, having (as did everyone, I assume) enjoyed From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler and also liked Jennifer, Hecate, MacBeth, William McKinley and Me, Elizabeth and the B’nai Bagels books, back when it was a delight and a surprise to find a mainstream book about One of Us. Not that I understood about mainstream at that point. Not that I do now. And wasn’t there a sort of sequel to About the B’nai Bagels? Not about the team, I mean, but about the family. Anyway, I have no idea whether our local libraries just failed to stock this book, or whether I somehow missed it on the K shelf, or whether I actually did read it, and just forgot about it entirely.
Anyway, it’s an odd book. Matilda, Abbot Suger, and Eleanor are in heaven ... no, it’s not a joke.
chazak, chazak, v’nitchazek,
-Vardibidian.