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In this book, Monsieur Monmouton and his farm animals take a trip to Paris which is a big change from the farm.  While on their trip, they visit the Louvre, a three star restaraunt, and many more places that are reminiscent of life in Paris.  This is a really great book for introducing students to Paris and a new language; however, there are quite a few French words that are difficult to say and it doesn't give the meaning of them either.  The pictures are excellent and dramatize the Paris life perfectly so students will be able to feel something while reading it.  One teacher says that this book's water color illustrations bring the adventure alive and to a new level.

  This book is about a famous sculpture in an art museum of a little ballerina girl.  The book is told from the museum guard's perspective. He tells the people that visit the museum that the statue is a girl named Maria.  Maria was a little girl who dreamed of being a ballerina at the Paris Opera House.  Her poor parents saved all their money to send her to ballet school.  At ballet school she encountered a famous artist named Degas. Maria got an opportunity to dance in the Paris Opera House but only if she took lessons everyday. Her father became very ill and since he could not work they couldn't afford it.  Then Degas offered to pay Maria to pose for him, but she only made enough to pay for her father's doctor and not dance lessons. The artist reveals that he is going blind and must sculpt her because he can no longer paint.  She never got to perform at the Paris Opera House but two years later the sculpture became very famous. This is a brilliant tale of an actual sculpture of a ballerina by sculpture/painter Edgar Degas. It displays all types of art; dance, performance, sculpture and painting.  This is an excellent book that incorporates fact and fiction of the arts all in one.