Catherine the Great, Empress of Russia, was a woman with a lot of energy, and plenty of ideas. She founded the Hermitage Museum (in 1764), as well as the first girls schools in Russia (the Smolny Institute for noble girls, and the Novodevichii Institute for common girls), and was a sponsor of Moscow University. She also invented the very first roller coaster, and that is what this brief work of picture-book history explores. Having always loved the winter ice slides, Catherine commanded her builders to construct a summer slide to her specifications, one that would give her the same pleasure of rushing downhill, with the wind in her face. Eventually, in 1784, they did just that, creating a great wooden slide, with a wheeled coaster rolling down its steep slope, an idea that would be adapted elsewhere, leading eventually to the modern rollercoaster. This origin story is honored in at least twelve European languages, in which the word for this type of ride can be translated as "Russian mountains..."**

I had no idea, until picking up A Royal Ride: Catherine the Great's Great Invention, that Catherine the Great had a hand in creating this amusement park ride, and I found the story here both informative and engaging. Having greatly enjoyed Kristen Fulton's Flight for Freedom: The Wetzel Family’s Daring Escape from East Germany, I have sought out other books from the author, and this was the first to come through at my library. Unfortunately, while I found the story here fascinating, the accompanying artwork from English illustrator Lucy Fleming was not the equal of that done by Torben Kuhlmann for Flight for Freedom. Created digitally, in Adobe Photoshop, Fleming's illustrations have a cute, cartoon-like style, and a fairy-tale feeling that obscures the historical setting, making the reader feel as if she were in a generic "princess story." It's not that there's anything wrong with the artwork - as I said, it's cute - but I would have preferred something done in a more realistic style, one that captured the historic setting better. Leaving that aside, this was still an interesting and engaging book, one I would recommend to picture-book readers interested in stories of inventors and/or historic royalty.

** It's a fascinating side note that, while so many languages describe a rollercoaster as "Russian Mountains," in Russian itself, this ride is described as "American Mountains" (американские горки / amerikanskiye gorki). How on earth did that happen?!? ( )