Customer Reviews

Marie: An Invitation to Dance: Paris, 1775 (Girlhood Journeys , Book One)

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Marie is really cool! An invatation to dance s the beginning of her adventures! The best part was the suprise at the end! I think you'll like it!

Marie dreams of being a ballet dancer, but cannot follow her dream without a sponsor. This book was neat because Marie could do some dancing, and had a big surprise at the end (I think the best books have a surprise at the end!)

This book is about a young girl named Marie who lives in France in 1775. She loves to dance ballet, and longs to become a ballerina. Life for her is good, until she hears talk about trouble, because the king is taxes are to high. Poor people are not getting anything to eat. This book is good, and I recommend it.

This series of books is wonderful. My daughter adores these books and I'm so glad I found them, I only wish they had more. We love that these books are about girls from around the world, great geography lesson.

Marie lives for her dance lessons with Gabrielle and dreams of becoming a ballerina, but without a rich patron to pay for more lessons, she knows that her dream will never come true. She tries to be like her happy-go-lucky friend Joelle and go along with her parents' plans to send her to a convent to learn homemaking skills and prepare for her eventual marriage, but she knows that it will break her heart. Instead, she turns to Prudence, an artist who has come to stay at her family's pension (boarding house) in Paris. Prudence is from the American colonies and encourages Marie to reach for her dream. However, Marie is forced to look outside of her own problems as students and poor people begin to riot for flour in the streets. Her friend Joelle's bakery is broken into and their money stolen - how can the king and queen allow this to happen? Don't they care about their own people? As Marie continues to search for a way to become a dancer, she also starts to grow up and look outside of her own troubles and see what is going on around her.

This is a charming look at Paris, France in 1775, right before the revolution began. Marie is a typical young girl who is very worried about her own life and sees everything else as being peripheral and unimportant, but she does come to see outside of her family life in the story. She also learns that she can make people happy with her dancing and that she can share her talent for it whether she is a professional dancer or not. I think that most young girls will identify with Marie and will enjoy this story. It is a nice challenge for readers starting to get into chapter books, but at 71 pages, with large type, it will be a fun, easy read for more experienced readers. It is true that some of the conversations are a little stilted as the author tries to work in more historical background, but at least children are learning history while they are reading. There are full color illustrations scattered throughout the text, as well as a pronunciation guide for the few French words used in the story. Printed on glossy paper with a nice finish, this book is sure to appeal to fans of the popular American Girl series.

I loved this book from the very first page on! Marie has a tranquil life in bussling Paris, France. Her day consists of helping her parents in the family Cafe and Pension(pahn-SYOHN) or boarding house. Then meeting with Madam Gabrela for her dance lesson. Or, at least, that's how it used to be... Now, the streets of Paris are begining to fill with rebels, the air is filled with the whispers of Revolution. Change is in the wind not just for France, but for Marie personally. Some very important people begining to weave into Marie's life, giving her an idea that just might help with the Country's poverty problems. I absolutly loved this book! It provided such a vivid picture of France and her people, at such a difficalt time in it's history. This book taught me not only about France's Revolution, but parts of it's lanuage as well. Try it. You'll love it!

This is the first of several books about a young girl's exciting adventures in pre-Revolutionary Paris, France, of 1775. Marie dreams of being a ballet dancer, but without a sponser, she faces a future of marriage and children like her mother.