american girl characters: Cécile Rey and Marie-Grace Gardner (1853)
Cécile comes from a well-to-do and highly regarded family in the New Orleans free Black community. Cécile is confident, outgoing, curious, loves the limelight, and likes to be original. She is always full of clever ideas and can be quite mischievous. She also loves listening to her grandfather’s tales about the sea.
Marie-Grace was born in New Orleans; she and her father left the city to live on the east coast after her mother and younger brother’s deaths in 1849. She was brave as a young child, but years of moving frequently on the Northeast coast of the United States and not having a stable home have changed her; she is now quite shy and feels out of place and like her father couldn’t find the right place.