Capture Meet Marie-Grace (American Girls: Marie-Grace And Cécile, #1) Composed By Sarah Masters Buckey Physical Book

feels a little milk toast after all the politics of Addy, Being in New Orleans during Mardi Gras inis interesting, and I appreciate MarieGrace's social anxiety, Her friendship with Cécile is fun, but I would like the authors of this book to know that she can actually have more than one friend.
Given that these are the dolls that launched the Best Friends Series and the only two to share a series, it would be nice to see them navigate the complex nature of an interracial best friendship in the antebellum south.
Making Cécile MarieGrace's only friend and some "I don't see color" vibes are standing in the way of actually getting into those issues.
Hopefully the Cécile part of the story, written by a black woman, will do a better job of tackling these nuanced realities.
Meet MarieGrace is fine, but it could have been so much more, Question I can't figure out how to read the books on here MarieGrace now of New Orleans, formerly of Elton, Massachusetts, is different from most American Girls: she is shy, quiet, and lacks selfconfidence, especially since she is surrounded by French speaking NO natives who know the ropes better than she does.
This book even has a villainesssnarky classmate Lavinia, who does her best to make MarieGrace feel unwelcome, Mean Girls,anyone
Fortunately, at her singing lesson MarieGrace meets friendly Cecile who has her own titles in this series, who comes from a wealthy family "of color.
" Together they even manage gently to outmaneuver Lavinia, Good beginning to a new series with a new twist, The frocks worn by Cecile and MarieGrace are spectacular, by the way, I guess that helps Mattel sell more doll clothes!
As usual, there is a "Looking Back" author's note at the end, which makes the book more than a frivolous girls' story, and makes it useful for the classroom.
Lexile measure is. I love the American Girl series of books, Though I'm not their target audience any longer, I still like reading about the characters they've invented since my childhood,

The NOLA characters flopped pretty spectacularly being released and retired in the span ofyears, But maybe the books had something to do with that Not to say this one was bad at all, I enjoyed it, and I relate to MarieGrace a lot since I have trouble making friends and don't always know what to say when I'm around people.
So my beef isn't with the story or the character, but it felt offbrand, The illustrations were lackluster, none of the people in them actually making proper eye contact, and feeling very flat, After looking up the artist to see her other work, it feels like maybe she wasn't into this project, She's very talented.
The vignettes also were cartoonish and vague, Usually the vignettes would highlight a specific thing that needed a helpful visual element to go with the text, And while the ones included here aren't bad for what they are, they just don't feel right,

Also, there was hardly any description of the characters' clothes or accessories we all know these books are here to help sell the toys, and I wasn't compelled to look anything up to add to my collection.


I'm looking forward to reading the rest of the series, but I'm understanding better why these dolls failed, I was excited finally to read the AG New Orleans characters, but this was a disappointment, It reads like a basic tourist introduction to the city with its outsider heroine, The illustrations are lackluster compared to past AG series how are there zero images of Mardi Gras parades and balls when they are the crux of the plot! I liked this book so much more than I thought I would.
A reader could definitely learn a lot about New Orleans culture during the Civil War, as well as a few French words and phrases along the way.
When I finished it, I was surprised to find myself thinking that I'd like to read the continuing story of her friend, Cécile.
Recap:
Cecile Rey is one of the "gens de couleur libres" or "free people of color" living in New Orleans in, Together, she and her friend, Marie Grace, experience all that the diverse, busy city has to offer: Mardi Gras parades and costume balls, outdoor French markets, helping to fight a yellow fever epidemic, volunteering at a local orphanage, and performing at a citywide benefit for the orphaned children.


:
Happy Mardi Gras, book lovers! In honor of the holiday, today I'm featuring a series set in New Orleans, and the first two books take place during Mardi Gras!

I was first inspired to cover this American Girl series after seeing a feature on author Denise Lewis Patrick on The Brown Bookshelf.
I'd never given a thought to the authors behind my beloved American Girl books, and reading the story of how Patrick was asked to author the Cecile series piqued my interest.
The Cecile series is unique from that of the other American Girls because she shares her books with a girl named Marie Grace.
I read "Meet Marie Grace" and then all of the Cecile books in the series, and it's very clear that the two authors plotted the stories out together.
Between the two "Meet " books, some lines were actually wordforword the same, I'm really not sure why they chose to have two main characters this time, If any of you know, please fill me in!

On the surface, the Cecile/Marie Grace series follows the same "formula" as every other in the AG line.
We "Meet" the girls, they go through some "troubles" but eventually save the day, and everyone ends up stronger and wiser, A little didactic, yes but these characters are brave, selfconfident role models for little girls today, I really like the fact that each book includes a chapter of nonfiction in the back, explaining how the events in the story are a reflection of real events from the past.


Cecile's story is notable because, unlike so many black characters in historial fiction including Addy!, she has no ties to slavery.
In fact, her family is one of the wealthier in New Orleans, She speaks French fluently a french glossary and pronunciation key is in the back of every book!, takes lessons from a well known Opera singer, and attends a private school.
Stereotypical, Cecile is not. Now I love Addy and I think her story is an important one, but I also think it's exciting to see such a unique narrative through Cecile.


Recommendation:
Gosh, I love the American Girls, This series, and the rest in the AG collection, are perfect for elementary school aged girls, And have you been to the AG website lately There are games, videos, and apps galore! First book in the MarieGrace amp Cecile books.
Half the books are from her perspective, half from Cecile's, So far, so good. I'll add in a full review when I'm done with the series,

ETA, after finishing the series: In a way, this series felt more like a longish single book from multiple viewpoints than a series.
After the initial setup in the first two books, the entire series deals mainly with an epidemic of yellow fever, Put it another way: the other American Girls historicals have read like episodes in a TV series, MarieGrace and Cecile read more like a miniseries, It's a nice change of pace, and I think I preferred it to the more disconnected series, This is the first so far, only series with split protagonists, Luckily, they do read like different people sharing a world, instead of two facets of the same person, Also a nice change of pace: Cecile's family are welltodo free people of color, something I don't see terribly much of in historical fiction, especially aimed at this age group.
I was nervous about how the split protagonists would work, especially with early books repeating entire scenes from one book to the next.
That happened less with later books, so it ended up working out much better than I had expected,

Reread: I'm feeling much more critical of this book this time around, MarieGrace is not the most engaging character, at least not in this book, And the treatment of race here is, . . odd. It's extremely surface level and feels quite ahistorical to me, MarieGrace has been raised with historically implausible notions of equality, and has somehow managed to miss segregation as a concept until she gets to New Orleans.
And later in the book, MarieGrace and Cecile change places at a costumed party, with Cecile going to the party for white children and MarieGrace going to the party for children not considered white, and there is no sense of the very real danger this little caper puts Cecile in.
For that matter, it feels like the author carefully avoids having MarieGrace notice that some of the children not considered white would have looked very much like her.
AG generally does a rosy view of history, but this is practically revisionist,

Whole series review,: Eh, Dividing the series between two girls, while an interesting enough concept in the abstract, didn't really do either character any favors, We have half as much time to get to know each of them, and chunks of each girl's book is taken up by the other.
MarieGrace in particular is kind of a bland protagonist, I think I would have preferred if this had just been Cecile's book, so we could have spent more time with her family and society.
Or even just more time dealing with the epidemic, which can't show up at all until towards the end of the third book and is functionally over at the end of the fifth.
Race is quite unevenly handled through the whole series, in that it's largely not handled at all, It should be a much bigger deal that the daughter of a white doctor and a girl from a welltodo family of color have made friends, but nobody seems to care.
And that may again be partly to do with the split nature of the series: we can't deal with race because there's no time to deal with race.
In the end, I think having two protagonists in this series was a gimmick that just didn't work out, Either one of the girls should have taken the lead, or the series should have been longer, It's a fine enough read, but it just can't live up to the better AG series, Actually finished this last night/early this morning before going to sleep, An interesting premise, having two leads I wonder if they got feedback from the Julie series about how Ivy could've been a colead see: all my Julie reviews where I gripe about how Ivy was functionally the protagonist of two books

New Orleans has a unique history in the United States much like Josefina's Santa Fe, it has its own identity and history prior to joining the union.
Cecile and other characters express surprise that MarieGrace "sounds American", who is in turn baffled that they call her that when technically, Louisiana's been part of US territory for the lastyears.


It's nice to get in the head of a shy, reserved character! Julie acts on her thoughts and Nanea actively wanted to help with the war effort, but MarieGrace is intimidated by being the new girl and not understanding French in a bilingual society.
I also found it refreshing that she's from the middle class and Cecile, a free person of color, is the one from the wealthy family more stories of all types for people of color instead of pigeonholing our historical roles into one kind of thing

Something felt a bit off in the illustrations maybe the posing, or the way light reflected off of them It felt less detailed and dynamic than previous series' work.
My history with MarieGrace and Cécile is this: I took my youngest sister to the American Girl store in Natick RIP for her birthday circa.
I saw these two characters froms New Orleans and thought it was such a cool time and location, and I love that they have an interracial friendship.
“If I were into still into American Girl, I would be into them,” I thought to myself, and promptly forgot about them as I droppeddollars on hair styling and ice skating outfits on my sisters doll.


Cut to: Present day, I bought a Kirsten doll to replace mine from childhood again, RIP, and because I am not content to have just a casual knowledge about anything on this Earth, I have been brushing up on the AGs of my youth and learning about “new” characters.
Want to make your brain explode Addy was introducedyears ago,

I was surprised to find that MarieGrace and Cécile were only around from, I assume this was because they were not profitable enough to keep around, which is some BS, Who are these children who are NOT interested in a friendship that crosses racial barriers in the antebellum South Are their parents not raising them to be antiracist nerds Full disclosure: I took a break during the writing of this review to read about the role of Louisiana in the Civil War, so clearly my parents did raise me to be The Nerdiest.
I can understand that an MG doll on her own may not be a fan fave so she really needs to be purchased in tandem with Cécile who I think can go solo on her own merit, this doll is cool af.
That!price tag for Dolls Who Are Friends may be a bit high, even for the rich folks who buy AG instead of the plentiful knockoffs.


So when I found the MarieGrace and Cécile books at a thrift store, I had to read them, I was more excited for Céciles story so I wanted to start there, but although the two Meet books are told concurrently, Céciles is technicallyI assume this is a “coheadliner” situation where the first “coheadliner” goes on first, i.
e. , is a longwinded opening act, So here we are at the longest Goodreads review Ive ever written, about the book Meet MarieGrace,

MarieGrace was born in New Orleans to a French mother and a Doctor from Pennsylvania father, Change the occupation to Engineer and the setting of this book to Southern New Hampshire and this could describe me, She and her father have moved around a lot during her childhood, but have landed back in New Orleans, She has unfortunately forgotten her French since leaving, and she is not Orleansian for the Frenchspeaking girls at her school, and not rich enough for the “American” girls at her school.
Ah, the good old days when having a doctor father and a livein illiterate maid did not make you, “the best in society”.
I shudder to think what her classmates would think of me, as I type this on my earlymodel iPhone on a couch I purchased from a college furniture storeyears ago.
So MarieGrace doesnt fit in anywhere, Except at her singing classes, where she can chat with Cécile every weekend between their classes,

MarieGraces defining characteristic is that she is insecure, It appears she

has not discovered alcohol yet, so I predict better things to come for her in her adulthood, But for now, while being relatable, I dont think that is enough to carry the story, She does go to a Mardi Gras ball, which is definitely the highlight of the story, She musters up the courage to dance only because of Cécile, MarieGrace was too nervous to dance at the White Kids Ball but Cécile was not, even after she, a Black girl, snuck into that same ball.
I LOVE THIS, but I shudder to think what would have happened if she had been caught, Although whites and free people of color lived sidebyside I am not seeing a whole lot of commingling so I doubt the punishment would have been “sent back to Black ball”.


I have Ceciles book ready to read next, but looking ahead in the series the books seem to take a dark turn intoterritory: The finalbooks in the series deal with a yellow fever epidemic that rages though New Orleans.
I CANNOT WAIT. Because this was not a popular series Ive never seen these books in the wild before, so Im crossing my fingers that I can get them from the library, where, I dont want to brag, but I got a card for yesterday after having lived here formonths.
COVID!









They came with with dolls I bought dont look at me NEXT

.