Charlotte in New York

My daughter has fallen in love with these books and it was our goal to collect the series for her. This clever and beautiful story book encompasses history lessons, geography lessons, art lessons, cooking lessons and French lessons in a wonderfully fun way for a little girl. The creative use of real paintings, old photoes and postcards as the illustrations further enhance the experience of Charlotte's journeys into your own child's world.

Charlotte in New York is the latest in the popular series about Charlotte Glidden, the gutsy 19th century girl from Boston who loves to travel the world and paint en plein air like her Impressionist painter father. I loved this book! It brought belle epoque New York to life for me and I learned much that I didn't know, even though I've lived in the city all my life: camels were used to mow the lawns in Central Park; Childe Hassam painted many of his cityscapes from inside a horse-drawn carriage; elevated trains left trails of sparks and ashes on the streets below; oatmeal makes a great floor polish and the origin of the word skyscraper. It's a hard-to-put down, jam-packed read and, as always, the illustrations and museum reproductions are fabulous - from Butler's painting of the Statue of Liberty to the box of that new candy, Good and Plenty, that Charlotte will take back to France -- a souvenir for Monsieur Monet. Delightful! (5 stars!!)

I am a huge fan of Charlotte in Giverny and Charlotte in Paris-and I have to say this book is my favorite Charlotte yet. Once again we read Charlotte's journal-and her voice is so strong and true one forgets she is a fictionalized character! Of course the period postcards, photographs and lush paintings are all transporting...the author brings a human context to the paintings (we find Charlotte herself in a watercolor by Maurice Prendergast--and she even comes to own a luminous Theodore Butler of the Statue of Liberty...)A beautiful effort on the part of the author and illustrator-I am just delighted by this vibrant, historical, and yet personal journey...the book is a vivid glimpse into a young girl's life in the year 1894...a true success and a glorious read!!!