For those who loved the original story and are willing to turn a blind eye to the time shift, this book is a delightful glimpse into the life of a secondary character and the life after the story of little Sarah. It is a great vehicle to discuss the anniversary of the right of women to vote and what it took for women to get here. It also brings back fond memories of the original. So nice to see Lottie evolve into a wonderful young woman. Great twist and imagination.

Though missing the enduring charm of its source material, this A Little Princess sequel follows Lottie as she becomes involved with the suffragette movement in England. Webb twists the death of Lottie's mom to weave it into this plot. Though the characters are interesting, the setting is informative, and the story engaging, fans of the original story will likely find something missing. Recommended as an additional purchase where historical novels are popular.

A Little Princess Finds Her Voice by Holly Webb is a good continuation novel to Frances Hodgson Burnett’s A Little Princess. I enjoyed having an older Lottie as the central character and how Sara was there but in the background. It weaves the suffragette movement as witnessed by Lottie which I thought was done in a great way.

Holly Webb has taken the characters from a classic and given them a new lease of life. Lottie's political awakening is a slow and honest journey. She starts to see things in a different light, and decides to follow her heart and find out more about the suffragette movement. In The Princess and the Suffragette we find out more about Lottie's story , about the social atmosphere she is growing up in, about the restrictions on her life in Miss Minchin's school.

I throughly enjoy this sequel to A Little Princess. Holly Webb's style of writing is different from Burnett's but I think she did a great job of taking the reader on a new adventure with the same characters we have come to love. 

I received an e-ARC from SOURCEBOOKS Jabberwocky via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

1.5/2 This is the story of Lottie, Sara Crewe's young friend from A Little Princess. Sara has moved next door and appears periodically, but it's Lottie learning about the suffragette movement and befriending a servant that is the focus of this middle grade novel meant as a sequel. As Lottie becomes more involved she learns that the people around her have all lied to her and she and her new friend Sally try to make things right. The story is engaging enough, but I was overall left wondering why this was written.

The element I most appreciated in this book was Sally. Sally is able to point out the problems with a class based society. She is smart, able to both forcefully and gently guide Lottie to better and more nuanced understandings. At least sometimes. She helps Lottie find out about the suffragette movement and learn about the wider world outside of Miss Minchin's.

That said, I had some serious issues with this book. I do love A Little Princess in many ways, BUT, it is a dated book. For it's time, the take on class within the original story was important, but doesn't hold up today. Some of the same problems that plague the book are also in this new sequel, despite the effort to focus on suffragettes. Becky is still Sara's servant (albeit one who takes tea with her mistress regularly.) Sally and Lottie are friends, but while Sally points out the privilege that Lottie enjoys, Lottie continues to frequently be envious of Sally, Though one can see that the message is that each person has their own hardships, particularly in that Miss Amelia and Miss Minchin do become slightly more complex, overall it feels flat. Part of the issue is that, while this is a historical fiction, the modern reader isn't likely to have as complete a sense of the issues at play in this book. Even if one is familiar with the original book, there is a lot here that just feels uncomfortable by today's standards.

But then there's the not quite literal elephant in the room. Colonialism. This is the thing that goes completely unaddressed in this new story. Mostly it remains tied into Sara's story more than Lottie's. However, while Webb actively is attempting to create a character in Lottie working toward more modern viewpoints, Sara seems to be stuck. She sort of supports Lottie, but not fully, and at no point are any of the trappings of colonialism questioned. We are supposed to just see as fun the elephant style saddle that gets sent for her dog for the monkey to ride in; clearly nothing has improved in this regard from the original book. If this was written to provide a stronger modern counterpoint, I don't feel it was as successful as it should have been. But then, I'm also not convinced that this a story that needs to be revisited again.

This story was cute, but to me lacked some essentials. Sara Crewe from The Little Princess is a side character, but I didn’t feel her portrayal was accurate. In this novel, Sara is non-committal to a major issue and seems fearful of her guardian. This doesn’t line up with the Sara I remember. Our main character of Lottie is well thought out and watching her grow is effective. The storyline of suffragettes in England is a main part of the novel, but I feel is dropped at the end and loses some effectiveness. I don’t feel that a child reading this book would truly understand what the good and bad of the suffrage movement really looked like.

First, before I get all nitpicky, about what I didn't like about this book, I do have to say I loved the idea of this, that a girl from this time, from Miss Minchin’s, would get involved in the Suffragist movement. I do love the historical events that are covered in this book. For that alone, this book might get youth interested in the history of the movement.

I love how the Coronation March is what introduced Lottie, and that she struggled on, trying to get more and more information about it, despite being in the boarding school, which she couldn't leave.

I love that they saw the martyrdom at the Derby, where Emily Davison walked in front of the king's horse. It is very cool to see how these characters react to these events, which must have seemed very strange to them.

But, having said all this, although it has the characters of A Little Princess, including, from time to time Sarah, it does not read with the same language as the original.

I love the Little Princess. I re-read it every few years. I have even attempted to write a sequel myself. But it is tough writing in the original style, so that you can go from the original to the new book, and this book suffers from that problem. It isn't written in the same style of the original, rather it is written in a modern style, with modern vernacular. It is a little jarring.

Part of it could also be the American "translation", as I am going to assume that Lottie refers to her mother as Mum, rather than Mom, as she does in the American version of this book. (As a note, I hate it when publishers feel they have to do that.)

The story is about Lottie, several years later from when the author assumes the original story took place. Since A Little Princess was published in 1905, the events in this book apparently are taking place in 1911, although the original short story was published in 1888. I only bring this part up, because the first version was written under Queen Victoria, but was published in Edwardian times.

So, although I would recommend this for completists, for people who want to read all variations that have been done to this story, I would not recommend it to people who are purists, that want to have the original, and no other.


Thanks to Netgalley for making this book available for an honest review.