Circus Play

illustrated by Joanne Fitzgerald,
Orca Book Publishers, Fall 2002
ISBN 1551432250

“Everyone calls my house The Big Top.
Kids knock at the window wanting to play…”

A boy’s living room is transformed into a circus and
his friends play true to the traditions of the Big Top.

Review

Circus Play blends fantasy and realism, with the emphasis on fantasy.
The setting is the narrator’s home, a favorite meeting place for the
neighborhood preschoolers. Indeed, local children call his house “The
Big Top.”

The boy’s mother belongs to a circus group and is far from shy. Young
visitors love to watch her exercising on her trapeze in the living room.
There is also a “Circus Costume Box” that the children are welcome
to explore. One child becomes a lion tamer. Then an imaginary escaped
lion turns the play into a safari: “A jungle spills everywhere as the
lion escapes.” The child-narrator loves his “extraordinary mom,”
and his friends share the fun.

Joanne Fitzgerald’s zany watercolors suit this gentle fantasy very
well. Children may have less difficulty than adults in making the
daredevil leaps between realism and fantasy that the text constantly
requires. Recommended.

— Reviewed by Patricia Morley