Marie-Laure goes blind from bilateral cataracts. Her father, who lost his wife when she gave birth to Marie, is a locksmith at the Natural History Museum in Paris. During the day he keeps the museum's keys, fashions its locks and cases for the collection, and makes repairs. She goes blind because of cataracts, and he helps her cope with blindness by buying her Jules Verne adventure novels written in Braille and by building her a wooden replica of their neighborhood so she can learn to navigate it blind.
