I have always been fascinated by art and architecture from times gone past. I love that I live in a city that has older architecture on display. But I have always dreamt of someday traveling to Europe to see some of the incredible art and architecture that is even older. One of the most well known architectural marvels in Europe not only contains breathtaking sights, but also means a lot to people all over the world – the Notre Dame Cathedral. I remember watching the horrible fire there years ago, and being deeply saddened by the loss of such a treasure. So I was thrilled when we were given the opportunity to check out this beautiful children’s book about Notre Dame, and the power of hope and community.

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The Story

The Girl and the Cathedral was written by Nicolas Jeter and illustrated by Sara Ugolotti. This book follows the narrator as he talks to a little girl planting a garden. But she isn’t planting a typical garden. Instead, she is planting a garden of people. In the center of her garden, she places the Notre Dame de Paris, to watch over it.

As her garden changes, and the people face the highs and lows of life, Notre Dame keeps shining as a beacon of hope. When a fire strikes the cathedral, the little girl is devastated. But the people in her garden come together to realize that the hope and light from Notre Dame lives within them.

The beautiful illustrations in this book are breathtaking. From the gorgeous images of the cathedral, to the images of the people of Paris (some of whom look familiar), kids will love exploring all of the details hidden within them. The end papers contain more information and detailed sketches of the cathedral as well.

To celebrate the story in the book and the influence of Notre Dame, we decided to pair this book with some fun Notre Dame activities.

Flower Craft

As the little girl plants her garden for the people, she also plants Good Things that she wants them to have. We decided to create our own garden of flowers with good things and character traits that we want to have as well. This was a great project before going back to school. (Especially with the lack of social interactions that we have had since the pandemic started). Talk to kids about the traits that good people have, and that they want to exude.

We used our fingerprints to create a garden full of flowers, and wrote these character traits on the stems.

Touring Notre Dame

Take kids on a virtual tour of Notre Dame Cathedral with these video tours. The videos on this site give you a glimpse at the size of the cathedral as well as the incredible sights within it (before the fire). We had a lot of fun exploring the sights and pretending that we were actually standing inside it.

Stained Glass Activity

It’s hard to look at Notre Dame and not focus on the beautiful stained glass. We were inspired by this to create our own stained glass for our windows. First we cut different colors of tissue paper into little squares and shapes. Next, we folded a piece of wax paper in half and cut a matching square out of both pieces. We painted a thin layer of glue onto one of the squares and laid the tissue paper on it. Finally, we added glue to the other square and sandwiched them together. We used black construction paper to frame our stained glass and poked a hole in the top so we could hang it in the window.

This beautiful children’s book about Notre Dame celebrates the light and hope that it provides to the people of France and all around the world. Spread the light by sharing this post with other lovers of Notre Dame!

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