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Book Review of Isabel: Taking Wing (Girls of Many Lands)

Isabel: Taking Wing (Girls of Many Lands)
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This book, Isabel: Taking Wing, was written by Annie Dalton. It was set in the Elizabethan age in London, in the year 1592. It is the first of the five books in the series Girls of Many Lands, which tells about girls in history, how they are alike and different from girls today.

Isabel: Taking Wing has about 180 pages and 12 chapters. In addition to the story, the author put a section in the back of the book that tells what the women wore, as well as historical facts and pictures about Queen Elizabeth I and Shakespeare's theater. This book comes with a colorful Isabel bookmark where you can keep your place in the book.
This book has a very colorful picture of Isabel on the front, but no pictures while you are reading the story. But I do like how the author wrote the book in first person, where you can feel what Isabel felt. She really described Isabel's thoughts and dreams in an exciting, fun to read way. I love the way the author filled this book with happy, sad and exciting times that Isabel experienced in her life.

Isabel is a 12-year-old girl growing up in a wealthy house in London. The author tells how Isabel grows tired of endless chores to prepare her for being a lady. So she sneaks out to see a Shakespeare play, but she is found out and banished to live at her aunt's house in the countryside. On the way there she is attacked by thieves. They leave her unharmed, but lost and alone. She then joins a band of actors, disguised as a boy, and finally gets a taste of the freedom she longs for. But it is not the freedom she imagined it to be. By the end of the book, though, she is reunited with her family, and discovers what freedom really means.

This book has many historical details, as well as good humor. It tells how women were expected to run the household and men to earn the money, like trading overseas that was Isabel's father's job. As Isabel bluntly put it, "Women must stay indoors, sewing stitches so fine that no one will ever see them. Our work is only visible if we do it badly. But men's work is very visible if you do it wisely." Isabel also says, "Girls must always be good and stay at home. But when you are a boy the world can be your home."
Isabel longs for adventure, and finds it in this book, and you will too!