When author Walter Dean Myers came across a packet of old letters in an antiquarian bookstore several years ago he wanted to know more about the person who had written them. His careful research into documents at the Royal Archives at Windsor Castle, newspapers of the time, diaries and letters, provided the pieces he needed to retell the intriguing true story of this remarkable young woman. Known to the Western world as Sarah Forbes Bonetta, she had been born into one of the ruling families of the Egbado people in West Africa in the mid-19th century. At age five, after witnessing the brutal murder of her parents during a raid by their Dahomian enemies, she was taken prisoner and marked for ritual sacrifice. A British Commander, Frederick Forbes, convinced Dahomian leader, King Gezo, to spare the child's life by sending her to England as a gift to Queen Victoria. Enchanted by the small girl from the beginning, Queen Victoria saw to it that she was well educated and that she enjoyed a life of material wealth and privilege. As a child, Sarah played with Queen Victoria's children and she maintained close ties to the British royal family throughout her short life. She was something of a celebrity in her own time, although she has been largely forgotten today -- until now. This elegantly designed volume, illustrated with numerous brown-tone photos and drawings from the Victorian era, provides an intimate portrait of Sarah and her times through letters penned by her and her friends, and through Queen Victoria's own journal entries. (Ages 10-14)

In 1849, a young African girl came within moments of being sacrificed in the bloody Dahomian ritual called the "watering of the graves." But Commander Frederick E. Forbes, the young British captain of the HMS Bonetta, intervened, provoking Dahomian King Gezo to offer the girl as a gift to Queen Victoria instead. Forbes named the girl Sarah Forbes Bonetta and took her back to England, where she became Queen Victoria's protege. Walter Dean Myers discovered the kernel of Sarah's story in a bundle of original letters he purchased from a London book dealer. From these letters, along with excerpts from Queen Victoria's diary, newspapers, and Forbes's published account of the Dahomans, Myers pieced together Sarah's life. In his unembellished narrative we learn about Sarah's capture by the slave-trading Dahomans; her rescue by Forbes; her life in England under the Forbes' care; her regular visits to the Queen; her stay at a missionary school in Sierra Leone and abrupt return to England; her marriage and early death. Yet, as horrific and miraculous as the events of Sarah's life are, Myers can only pose questions about who Sarah really was ("What were her dreams for her own future...? What images came to her as she rode in the pony cart with the royal children? How often did she think of Dahomey? Of King Gezo?"). Sarah's chatty, unprovocative letters, which hint at the upperclass Englishwoman she became, reveal nothing about her African heritage or about the traumatized girl she must have been (Myers could not even discover her African name). Ironically, this seeming weakness proves the ultimate testimony to Sarah's life-the very absence of her voice bears undeniable witness to her story.