*"This emotional and beautifully illustrated tale about Paris, the
cathedral, and its people will make a great addition to any
library."--School Library Journal, starred review
A 2020 Maxy Awards Children's Finalist
On an island in the Seine, a little girl plants a garden--but not a
garden of flowers. It will be a garden of people, she says: Paris. And
in the center of that garden will stand its guardian, a grand cathedral
carved from stone and roofed with light: the majestic Notre Dame de
Paris.
Alas, the garden will change, as people must. The girl sees kings and
revolutions, empires and democracies, wars and tragedies. There are the
best of times, and there are the worst. Through it all, the light of
Notre Dame keeps hope bright.
But when fire strikes Notre Dame itself, the little girl is grief
stricken. It seems all light has gone out--until her beloved people
discover what she has planted within them all along.
In the spirit of The Little Prince, The Girl and the Cathedral is a
moving story about life, freedom, love, loss, and the glory of new
beginnings. It is a story about Notre Dame, but much deeper, it is a
story about all that Notre Dame stands for.
The book includes a fold-out timeline of Notre Dame's history with
period paintings and photographs.