Cécile's Gift

American Girl: Marie-Grace and Cécile #6

by Denise Lewis Patrick, Christine Kornacki (Illustrator), Cindy Salans Rosenheim (Illustrator)

Cécile and her friend Marie-Grace volunteer at Holy Trinity Orphanage every week, and Cécile becomes especially close to a little girl named Perrine. But there are so many children who have lost their families to yellow fever, and Cécile wishes she could do more to help them. When she hears that a huge benefit will be held to raise money for all the orphans in New Orleans, she is determined to take part. But what can Cécile give to the orphans to lift their sad hearts and let them know she cares?

Genres: Historical Fiction, Childrens, Historical, Middle Grade, Fiction, Young Adult, Juvenile

85 pages, Hardcover

First published August 30, 2011

Reviews

[Katie]

The great AG marathon continues. Again, reading for the first time as an adult, inspired by the American Girls podcast. Here's what stood out to me:

- From page one, it's very clear that the storm has passed and life is returning to normal. (It's currently late 2021 and I'm jealous about this part.) Cècile is happy to see Monette again; less thrilled to see the Metoyer sisters back. And disgusted - as when she received their letter over the summer - by how little they understand about what the city has gone through.

- Cècile freaking and running out on Perrine when the girl doesn't understand her poem is not a great moment for her - and made me think of a similar moment at the end of book 3 where MG wants to run home and cry about saying goodbye to Philip, but instead rallies to play with the other children.

- Cècile's poem legitimately feels like something a ten-year-old might write.

- Cècile and Marie-Grace's friendship has blossomed beautifully. MG can tease Cècile about not liking to write letters and they always encourage each other. Their friendship has even expanded to encompass their families; the dinner they share at the end is a lovely scene.

So let's consider the series as a whole:

I don't hate it! I like both of these girls, I like the ways they support each other. There's a lot of "what life was like," which is very much my jam. It's entirely possibly that I would have been into this if I had been the target age when it came out.

But still, there are problems. Because the protagonists are so likeable, because everything comes out okay for them - among other reasons - it feels a little bland, despite such a seemingly dramatic setting. In the later books, we're told over and over how much loss there has been, but the ways we see this are all a step or two removed: orphanages filling up; MG's father is never home; Cècile's father is only working on grave markers. Which are all clever details to include, but they lack immediacy. Cècile encounters two cases of yellow fever in her household. MG helps in a public infirmary for one evening. In both cases, the experience is intense - but brief.

For that matter, really only two books of the six are IN the epidemic. The first two books are introductory - and somewhat repetitive - meaning that book 3 feels more like a second book in the way it starts to develop the themes. That's where we first get an indication that yellow fever is going to be bad this year. Books 4 and 5 are deep in it. By the end of 5, it's clear that life is returning to normal, and book 6 celebrates that.

I also think both the main characters get shortchanged. Because the series is split between them, we get half as much time with each girl. Even though they do appear in each others' books, the friend is not present for the majority of the book. And since we follow them through this epidemic, we don't get the full range of hopes and dreams and fears we would normally get - so much of their energy is focused on the crisis at hand. By the end of six books, I still feel like I'm only just getting to know these girls.

I have two of their three mysteries, so those are next on my to-read pile. Perhaps they'll help further their character development.

[Hannah Showalter]

cecile entering her poet era here, love to see that!!

[Panda Incognito]

The moral of the story is that you should seek applause for self-centered, performative acts of charity. This book is incredibly dull and slow-moving, and the entire story revolves around Cecile's desire to showcase herself at a fundraising benefit for the orphans. Sure, she wants to help, but what she really wants is to be noticed and praised, not to participate in any of the behind-the-scenes work. She is offended that her family doesn't jump to the same conclusion that she does, that she should be part of the show itself, and is determined to show everyone how gifted and compassionate she is.

She also insists that she knows exactly what newly orphaned children are going through, and attempts to express that in a badly written poem about the yellow fever epidemic that New Orleans was beginning to recover from. She receives wildly enthusiastic applause, and gets a big hug from the orphan girl whom she has been trying to impress. It's all very shallow, and as another reviewer noted, even though people in New Orleans had limited entertainment options in the 1800s, a nine-year-old's poetry declamation should never have gotten such a dramatic response.

I thought that this book about post-epidemic recovery could be interesting and relevant to COVID-19 dynamics, but I didn't connect with anything in this whole story. It is incredibly dull and self-centered, and its only merit is the demonstration that toxic charity is the domain of the economically and socially privileged, regardless of race.

[Bailey]

Such a cute ending! This series was so fun to read and I also learned a lot about history and New Orleans specifically, which was really cool! :)

[Ciara]

boy, am i ever relieved that this is the last book in this series. i am not wild about these characters.

this one is all about how some folks in new orleans decided to organize a benefit for the local orphanages, which are housing more children than ever since the yellow fever epidemic. everyone is excited & wants to contribute. mme oceane has been invited to sing a song & cecile suggests that marie-grace sing a duet with mme oceane, as marie-grace has such a pretty voice. armand wants to paint backdrops, mrs. rey is going to contribute some pies or something, & of course cecile wants to help out as well. but how? a children's choir is performing, but cecile is pretty self-aware about the fact that she doesn't have a great voice. all she really wants to do is a recitation. she loves to recite.

um. i know it was a different time & everything, maybe recitations by nine-year-olds were the height of world-class entertainment in 1853, but this sounds totally, totally boring to me.

cecile works with someone down at the theatre to choose the perfect recitation. she wants to read something that will really speak to the children in the orphanages--something that captures the fear they felt losing their parents, but also the hope they have for the future. she finds a poem about a thunderstorm & thinks it checks all the boxes. she works her ass off memorizing it & learning how to recite it with just the right emotion. then she screens it for an audience of one: a little girl who is temporarily staying at the orphanage after her brother (her only family) collapsed in the street from yellow fever. (incidentally, i really wonder how realistic it is for people to be repeatedly described as just keeling the fuck over one day from the fever, while they're out living their every day lives. if i wake up one day with even a whisper of a sniffle, i dive right back into bed & stay there until i feel 100% better. you won't catch me keeling over with yellow fever in the cracker aisle at the local grocery store!) the little girl does not get the thunderstorm poem. cecile is crushed.

marie-grace suggests that cecile write her own poem. because if there's one thing that's even worse than listening to a ten-year-old recite some abstract poem about a thunderstorm, it's listening to a ten-year-old recite a poem she wrote herself. that cloud of dust you see is me booking it for the nearest exit.

cecile is non-plussed. she thinks her talent is in recitation (HOW IS THAT A TALENT?), not writing. but she gives it a whirl & is surprised when the words start flowing. she has no trouble writing a lovely (to her) poem that perfectly captures her assumptions about how the orphans must feel. because this entire series of books is basically about how a couple of privileged, relatively spoiled little girls save the less-fortunate with their amazing powers of empathy. *puke*

the book even includes cecile's poem in full. it's not good. i know it was written by the author of the book & not cecile, & maybe she made it purposefully kind of rotten so it would seem more like a young girl wrote it, but...suffice to say, not everyone can or should write poetry. cecile decides that her gift is her ability to put the orphans' feelings into words. because god forbid that poor children be allowed to speak for themselves, amirite?

[RaspberryRoses]

A lackluster ending to a series I did enjoy, despite it all.

I don't understand why - from a writing perspective - Marie-Grace is so excited about going on the trip. For a few MONTHS. Away from her father. She was so upset about this prospect last book...! And of course, it's a vacation, so I can see why a real 10 year old girl would feel different. But It just felt like a shock in a storytelling way.

And it felt far too late into the series to introduce a character like Perrine. Cécile's poem was... appropriate for her age. It was fine.

[Little Seal]

I find it kind of hilarious that people are complaining about this series because the CHILDREN are self-centered. All the children in AG books are self-centered in one way or another! Of course they don't care that much about yellow fever until it effects them personally! THAT'S REALISTIC.

Granted, these stories are weaker than other AG books but I'm laughing at the absurdity of expecting books about CHILDREN to be some intense, moral story. I think Cecile wanting to be on stage to preform something and get applause from it is hardly that selfish for a NINE YEAR OLD.

[Aimee]

3.75 stars. Cute ending to the series. They really strengthened the friendship and I love that the storylines of the epidemic and orphans stretched over the last 4 books. It was nice to not have that story rushed.

[Shayla Salazar]

I love to see how communities came together after disasters and the message that we each have a gift to give,

[Rachel B]

#6 in the Marie-Grace and Cecile series in my opinion. This series as a whole did not impress me as much as I'd hoped. First of all, the girls just aren't that exciting of characters to me. They both seem kind of in the background of the events happening to them, and because of that, the events also feel removed. Also, neither of the girls has a moment where they face a dilemma and have to take strong or brave action to help (e.g. Samantha taking Nellie and her sisters from the orphanage, Felicity freeing Penny, Caroline almost burning the shipyard). The closest we get to that is Marie-Grace deciding whether to let the orphanage send Philip to Chicago, but even that wasn't Marie-Grace making a choice herself; it was Marie-Grace not getting in the way of someone else's decision. Similarly, Marie-Grace doesn't decide by herself to send Philip to the white orphanage; her dad decides it. I guess Marie-Grace and Cecile have the idea to dress Philip up in Cecile's cousin's baby clothes, but still that isn't on the level of the dilemmas some of the other American Girls have had to deal with.

I also didn't feel as immersed in these characters' worlds as for some of the other American Girls, probably because of the split between the girls' perspectives and not feeling like you have enough time to get to know them or the people in their lives. There's also not a lot of character development or change the characters go through or a thread that ties the earliest books to the last ones, in the way that Caroline's desire to captain a ship had a payoff in her last book or Samantha's friendship with Nellie had a payoff in her last book or Addy's escape from slavery had a payoff in her last book. In these books, it seems like an epidemic briefly interrupts the girls' lives and then at the end of the book everything goes back to normal except for the death of Cecile's maid. Neither of the girls demonstrates that they've learned anything or changed at all from the experiences they've gone through.

I was also disappointed that there were so many things NOT explored in these books that I wish had been. I wish there had been more discussion of Cecile's family history and ancestry - how did they become free people of colour? Her grandfather was clearly a free person of colour; were his parents also? His grandparents? What were their lives like? What experiences of racism, if any, has this family had in the past? I felt like the series depicting Cecile as naive about race didn't satisfy me.

Similarly, what about Philip? What will it mean for him to go to a white orphanage in Chicago and be adopted by a white family? What if his mother does come back for him? What if Philip starts looking more phenotypically black as he gets older? What is the impact of severing him from his black roots? I felt like in general, the series gave an unrealistically sunny view of race, with Marie-Grace's family not having a bone of prejudice in their body and Cecile being unrealistically naive about race.

Similarly, the white orphanage is also unrealistically sunny, with the kids apparently spending all day playing? At that time, orphans (who were predominantly poor) would have been learning life skills like sewing and washing, not playing all day. The black orphanage is more realistic with the girls sewing, even though I think we're supposed to understand this is just due to the upcoming benefit.

Cecile is very frustrating in this book. Like many American Girl characters (looking at you, Felicity), Cecile wants to do what SHE feels like doing rather than doing what would actually be most useful to the people she claims to want to help. (This comes from her privilege.) Cecile wants to recite on stage, so she decides to do that, without considering at all what would be most meaningful to the children who have just lost parents; she just assumes that what she wants will be what they want too. She doesn't ever ASK any of the children, or even the adults that work with them, what would be most helpful (which would probably be creating something she can sell that will raise money for them...a ten-year-old reciting a poem is not realistically going to raise money for orphans).

Marie-Grace at least had the right idea in this book where she makes a suggestion based on what she's observed the children actually like, although I think a story might have actually been a bigger hit for the children than a poem written by Cecile...but whatever, it's fine. But even the poem she writes is STILL about her and her feelings rather than about the children and THEIR feelings. I know she's ten, so that's realistic, but also this being presented as a big win and a special gift for the kids just doesn't feel right. Cecile is very self-centered and her entire idea was focused on her own wishes, framed as something helpful to the kids without actually helping them. There are echoes of this today in how privileged people try to help the less privileged without ever asking what those people want or need.

Also, Mathilde being the family's cook and also so passionate about cooking didn't seem realistic for that time period. Most women who became cooks did so because of their backgrounds and needing money, not because of having an innate gift. If Mathilde had started a restaurant or a tavern or a small shop, that would have been a more realistic trajectory for someone who is passionate and skilled about cooking, but I think believing that servants become servants because of a specific knack for and enjoyment of the tasks they're doing is an unrealistically feel good story that children WANT to believe but is rarely ever true.

In this book, as in the previous books in this series, the looking back section is the best and most interesting part of the book. I would have liked to see more about how New Orleans is reconstructing after the epidemic in the book, but the girls' perspectives are limited to their own immediate worlds, so I understand why we didn't get that. Also, Lavinia and Agnes and Fanny serve basically no purpose in the series and I would have been happier without them in it.

[Katt Hansen]

I think I'm going to remember this series as "those stories about the epidemic" whether I want to or not! The aftermath shows that the difficulty isn't over yet. Cecile finds the way she can help the orphans of the city. A good story and a satisfying conclusion to everything.

[kezzie ʚ♡ɞ]

As a little girl. I was opposed with American Girl. I still really enjoy the stories. American Girl really got me into reading. I started American Girl when I was 9. I loved them ever since.

[Julie]

Unfortunately I feel like this series was bookended by its weakest books. Cécile seems unaware that the epidemic is still around her. Given our current pandemic surges and declines and the lack of awareness, it probably shouldn’t be a surprise a child is out of the loop on the latest disease news, especially in this era. I did appreciate a reference to her father’s ongoing work to make monuments; as someone still waiting on a family member’s headstone 11 months from a pandemic death it was a small detail that captured the era of people moving on while others are left behind.

This book left me realizing that despite the ongoing insistence of Marie-Grace and Cécile’s friendship, they could not be more different. I think it was nice to glimpse two young children who overlapped briefly but will move on from one another in adulthood. While realistic, it left me a bit sad that this short version was the story we told. I wish I’d seen a larger series for each girl and maybe the supplementals showing this period. Instead we could see Marie-Grace as her father’s sidekick in the north and her move south and then Cécile’s journey after the fever, finding herself and living in a family where maybe they’re all taking on different roles as their city changes. This book left me with the most curiosity of what happens next but also a sadness that I barely got to know one American Girl, let alone two.

[Jacqueline M.]

Meh. This book was a mediocre end to a series that just doesn't stand up to the other historic characters. I think part of the problem is trying to split between two girls and it felt forced. I also think it was a mistake to depart from the tried and true Meet, Lesson, Surprise, Birthday, Summer, Changes format. This particular book took a character that interested me and made her seem very self centered and unlikeable. While her poem was perhaps fine for a 9 year old I agree with others that it wasn't good. And Cecile is super worried about her own performance and how others will perceive her instead of how things will benefit the orphans.

Other beef I had with the series: really only 2 of the 6 books address the epidemic at all. I would have liked to learn more about how people were coping and the aftermath of rebuilding not just this final book that focused on Cecile writing a bad poem for a single benefit.

[Danielle T]

I don't have too many thoughts on this, the shortest of the six (partially because there's no next-book preview). The epidemic is slowing, but there's still a lot of orphans so it's benefit celebration time~

I still think it's pretty great to have Cecile as the character of privilege in these books rather than Marie-Grace, but it still gives me pause for "how will reciting a poem help orphans??" (Cecile's decision to write her own that they'll understand rather than a metaphor-laden entry makes sense, though).

Overall, I think the co-lead experiment was interesting, and an indication of shaking up the format- I haven't read Rebecca's books yet but will do so soon, because based on titles she seems to be the last of the core-six format (Julie's definitely pushed them a bit, but still followed thematic beats).

[TheBookishHobbit]

I did a pretty quick rating for this series because I can sum everything up right here.

I think the concept of writing a best friends series and awesome! But I wish it would have been executed better. If the girls each had six books to fully flesh out there story, I think I would have bee n able to better connect with them as characters. Both of their middle books were the more interesting ones out of the series. I just could not help wishing and wanting more out of his series. Out of all the AG series so far that I have read, this one would be my least favorite which is a real shame. There was so many bits and pieces in this series that are great to teach children, but the execution for me was less than desired.

Ranking:
1. Kaya 1764
2. Caroline 1812
3. Josefine 1824
4. Felicity 1774
5. Marie-Grace & Cecile 1853
6. Elizabeth 1775

[Katie Kaste]

Cécile and Marie-Grace are preparing for the fundraiser for the orphans of Trinity Church. The amount of orphans has at least doubled since the epidemic of Yellow Fever. Marie-Grade and Cécile work together to help each other get ready for their performances. Cécile feels in her heart that she needs to do something for the children and eventually finds the words to write a poem of her own to share. These two girls have started a new friendship that was bonded by the trauma of surviving the epidemic raging through their town. The girls want to continue their friendship into the future. This was a sweet ending to a sweet series.

[Ari Un-Fantôme]

My real rating would be a 7(3.5) but good reads doesn't allow that. This book was nice. Fanny and Agnes fall into the "Not that mean but the narrative pushes them to be mean rich girls" trope, which I found annoying. Cécile thinking that Perrine would understand the poem was kinda stupid in hindsight. She's what? 7? 8? The poem Cécile wrote was lovely and a nice send off for the series. I thought these books would delve more into slavery and racism. Even though she's not in slavery, she still is a black girl in the 1850's. I'm surprised we didn't see more of it outside her first book (Meet Cécile).

[Katie Young]

Definitely the best of this series. This had a plot with multiple events and a character with genuine emotions. It brought interesting historical events to life through the lens of fiction. I wish the other books had done this as well, but I'm now feeling more comfortable with the fact that Denise Lewis Patrick wrote Melody's books as well.

[Sara]

Cecile Rey you're breaking my heart - oh, okay, I'll stop.

This is the last book in the Cecile and Marie-Grace series. The Yellow Fever is dying down. It's pretty good good that of all the people who died in New Orleans, only one character from the series dies - the maid, Ellen.

Cecile's gift is a poem she recites at a benefit for the orphaned children at the orphanages.

[Rachel]

Honestly cried

[Arianna Munoz]

This was a good book. It was really interesting when Cecile helped the orphan's. I really liked this book because it was based on caring about others.

[Garey Escueta]

Great historical book

A great book of fiction and non-fiction. I always love to read the historical facts behind the story. Highly recommended for all ages.

[Laura Edwards]

A nice end to the Marie-Grace/Cecile series, but the artwork just isn't up to par with others in the American Girls canon.

[Mattie Mortensen]

This is one of my favorite American Girl books I’ve read. I love Cecile’s poem so much. This is a really sweet and touching story.

[abby can read]

📱
Overall, I preferred Celine's story to Marie Grace's. I felt there was more going on with Celine's storyline, and I liked seeing her family.

[Holly Trowbridge]

We get to see Cécile's newfound talent for poetry writing and reciting when she prepares a piece for a benefit to help the orphans left after the yellow fever epidemic sweeps through New Orleans.

[Lizzy]

hard to get through but quick read

[Katy Lovejoy]

Cecile and Josefina were my two favorite American girls

[Danielle]

I really enjoyed seeing both Marie Grace and Cécile's POVs, and I think that ending their series with a story about children being heard and understood during an epidemic is fitting.