Cecile is anxious for Mardi Gras and a new costume and she also makes a new friend named Marie-Grace Gardner.

Two girls. Two stories. One amazing adventure! This keepsake boxed set includes all six illustrated books about historical characters Cécile and Marie-Grace, friends who are growing up in 1850s New Orleans. The box opens up to reveal a fun-filled mini board game - girls will love earning points as they move around the board collecting cards. Board game and pieces tuck into a storage pouch that folds up with an elegant ribbon closure. Includes Meet Marie-Grace, Meet Cécile, Marie-Grace and the Orphans, Troubles for Cécile, Marie-Grace Makes a Difference, and Cécile's Gift.

Marie-Grace has just arrived in New Orleans and she begins to make friends and enjoys singing but she is shy.

A coming of age novel set in post-war France by an author who “launched the modern genre of the lesbian paperback” (Susan Stryker, author of Queer Pulp). When eighteen-year-old Cécile is orphaned at the end of World War II, the curious and adventurous Catholic student finds refuge in Paris, and with an older man. A former member of the Resistance with Cécile’s parents, Maurice is handsome, a thrilling cultured patron of the arts, and a mentor eager to introduce the budding young author to his intimate circle of friends—Cocteau, Sartre, and Eartha Kitt! As liberating an influence as he is, Maurice also encourages Cécile to shed her inhibitions he sees as bourgeois. Possessing a sensual and passionate temperament, Cécile is eager to begin exploring—by sharing Maurice’s mistress, and writing of every life-changing and delightfully scandalous new experience. Credited with penning the first, candidly lesbian novel—Women’s Barracks, in 1950—Tereska Torrès “scandalized mid-century America” (The New York Times). In By Cécile, written in 1963, “Madame Torres has re-imagined a youthful Colette (here called Cécile) in the infinitely seductive post-World War II period in Paris, where she moves like a sleeping princess through the perverse fairy tales of man-made cafe society. [It’s] a sharply perceptive novel” (Joan Schenkar, author of The Talented Miss Highsmith).

Meet 20 beautiful, creative French women who live with passion; work every day; and love to take care ot their homes and families. Visit them in their grand chateaux or charming little country cottages or Parisian apartments. Learn where they shop, where they work, where they play, how they dress and, how they entertain. Absorb each girlfriend's style and joie de vivre. Santoni's affectionate writing, along with gorgeous photography, tells each woman's story with an intimacy usually reserved for the closest of girlfriends. SHARON SANTONI·SMITH grew up in England but married a Frenchman and has raised her family in Normandy, France. Her blog, My French Country Home, is read daily by thousands all over the world. She writes about life in rural France; the ups and downs of family life; her inspiring French girlfriends; the intricacies of village life; and her love of searching for brocante treasure in the flea markets of Paris and the countryside.

An affluent black family fights against illness and death when a terrible outbreak of yellow fever strikes New Orleans in the summer of 1853.

A simple act of kindness brings two unlikely friends together in this profound picture book about the transformative power of friendship. A bear sits in his quiet, colorless home in a forgotten place. He feels invisible; no one comes to see him, and he spends his days alone. Then someone moves in next door. Madame Odette is sound and sunshine, and at first, the bear isn't sure about this colorful new neighbor. But through an act of kindness, the bear and the Madame Odette meet, and as time goes by, they become friends. And in the end, they are both forever changed by the gifts they bring each other. The first book from author-illustrator Cécile Metzger, The Invisible Bear is a powerful and beautiful meditation on the beauty of friendship and how two people can save each other just by being themselves.