"�highly recommended for architecture, photography, and history collections everywhere." --Library Journal

"McCaffety knows how to capture the fleeting beauty of a moment." --Times Picayune

For many, the French Quarter is New Orleans, yet how much do they really know about the Vieux Carr�? Truman Capote wrote, "Of all secret cities, New Orleans . . . is the most secretive. . . . [Its] architecture deliberately concocted to camouflage, to mask, as at a Mardi Gras Ball, the lives of those born to live among these protective edifices."

Through striking photographs and polished prose, The Majesty of the French Quarter opens the locked door and invites readers to discover a multitude of hidden marvels. Among the discovered gems is the 1828 Bourbon Street mansion of Lindy Boggs, U. S. ambassador to the Vatican and former congresswoman. Pictured are many such homes' secret, overgrown gardens where, noted Capote, "mimosa and camellias contrast color, and lazing lizards, flicking their forked tongues, race along palm fronds." Also featured are rare glimpses of the antique-filled and artfully decorated interiors of some of the Quarter's most majestic homes, including that of New Orleans novelist Julie Smith.

While this series has examined New Orleans as a whole and the city's Garden District in particular, the French Quarter has quietly kept her secrets to herself-until now.

“With large, crisply reproduced, color artwork on nearly every page, this picture-book biography . . . will appeal to a broad age-range.” —Booklist
 
Mary Cassatt knew from a young age that she wanted to make her living as an artist. She persuaded her parents to send her to the prestigious Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts at age fifteen, and by age twenty, she had moved abroad to begin her painting career. After several years of study and success, she found her rightful place among the Impressionists, becoming their first and only female American member.
Illustrated with Cassatt’s own work and that of other influential Impressionists, as well as photographs of the artist, this book offers children a glimpse at life during the late 1800s and showcases the colorful vivaciousness of Cassatt's work. Her beloved portraits of mothers and children are highlighted here, but the book also includes lesser-known work that shows Cassatt’s range of talent. Children will enjoy seeing the warm and loving images of others their age relaxing with pets, enjoying the outdoors, and being held by caring adults.

Inspiring for all children, but especially appropriate for those with artistic interests, this book shows how one girl's lifelong dream to become an artist came true due to an independent spirit, determination, and commitment to her craft.
 
“Attractive, clear, and useful to young students.” —Library Media Connection
 
“Through both words and art, this biography beautifully pictures the life of a talented and courageous woman.” —www.childrenslit.com
 
“Explores history and social context in an engaging manner that will connect readers—and their parents—to earlier times.” —The Bloomsbury Review

"The retelling of Solomon Northup's true story is a valuable contribution to black history. Readers of all ages will enjoy . . . this important account." -Charles A. Hicks, former Arkansas state supervisor of education

"Solomon Northup's trials and tribulations are retold in such a way that young-adult readers will be totally captivated by his story." -Children's Literature

Solomon Northup, a family man and hack driver in upstate New York, was kidnapped, whisked away from his home, and sold into slavery. His remarkable account of the epic journey from free man of color to slave to free man again is even more astonishing because it was written entirely from memory. As a slave, Northup was permitted neither pen nor paper, yet he was able to recall his ordeal in exacting detail.

Considered one of the best firsthand accounts of the slavery experience, this autobiographical story, originally published in 1853, has been painstakingly rewritten for children aged eight through twelve. This story of perseverance presents to children a personal side of the often-detached history of slavery.

Sue Eakin, who interpreted the story for a younger audience, saw her first copy of Solomon Northup's Twelve Years a Slave: 1841-1853 when she was just twelve years old. Years later, as a graduate student at Louisiana State University, she chose the book as the topic for her thesis.