The Floating Circus

In 1852 Ohio, twelve-year-old Owen steals aboard a floating circus called the River Palace, with nothing more in mind than catching a little of the show. But then a free black man named Solomon offers to take him on as an assistant animal keeper, and Owen discovers a family among the ragtag members of the circus-including a young elephant named Little Bet. A brush with yellowfever in New Orleans and a devastating storm threaten the boat and its crew. But it's the menace of slave catchers that poses the greatest danger of all, and that will put Owen's loyalty to Solomon and Little Bet to the test. This is a memorable tale of prejudice, race, and the relationships that transcend them. Inspired by the riverboat circuses of the nineteenth century, it also brings little known historical facts to life. TRACIE VAUGHN ZIMMER has worked as a special education teacher and reading specialist. She is also the creator of more than 80 teacher's guides for numerous publishers and has published poetry books as well as the novel Reaching for Sun. Tracie lives outside Cincinnati, Ohio, with her husband and two children. www.tracievaughnzimmer.com PRAISE FOR REACHING FOR SUN: "Like taking slow bites from a piece of homemade lemon pie-sharp sweet and honest." -Linda Sue Park, Newbery Medal winner "Josie's strength shines as she handles sadness and loss as well as recovery and progress."-Kirkus Reviews, starred review

#1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER • Two starcrossed magicians engage in a deadly game of cunning in the spellbinding novel that captured the world's imagination. • "Part love story, part fable ... defies both genres and expectations." —The Boston Globe The circus arrives without warning. No announcements precede it. It is simply there, when yesterday it was not. Within the black-and-white striped canvas tents is an utterly unique experience full of breathtaking amazements. It is called Le Cirque des Rêves, and it is only open at night. But behind the scenes, a fierce competition is underway: a duel between two young magicians, Celia and Marco, who have been trained since childhood expressly for this purpose by their mercurial instructors. Unbeknownst to them both, this is a game in which only one can be left standing. Despite the high stakes, Celia and Marco soon tumble headfirst into love, setting off a domino effect of dangerous consequences, and leaving the lives of everyone, from the performers to the patrons, hanging in the balance.

The nineteenth century saw the American circus move from a reviled and rejected form of entertainment to the “Greatest Show on Earth.” Circus Life by Micah D. Childress looks at this transition from the perspective of the people who owned and worked in circuses and how they responded to the new incentives that rapid industrialization made possible. The circus has long been a subject of fascination for many, as evidenced by the millions of Americans that have attended circus performances over many decades since 1870, when the circus established itself as a truly unique entertainment enterprise. Yet the few analyses of the circus that do exist have only examined the circus as its own closed microcosm—the “circus family.” Circus Life, on the other hand, places circus employees in the larger context of the history of US workers and corporate America. Focusing on the circus as a business-entertainment venture, Childress pushes the scholarship on circuses to new depths, examining the performers, managers, and laborers’ lives and how the circus evolved as it grew in popularity over time. Beginning with circuses in the antebellum era, Childress examines changes in circuses as gender balances shifted, industrialization influenced the nature of shows, and customers and crowds became increasingly more middle-class. As a study in sport and social history, Childress’s account demonstrates how the itinerant nature of the circus drew specific types of workers and performers, and how the circus was internally in constant upheaval due to the changing profile of its patrons and a changing economy. MICAH D. CHILDRESS received his PhD in history from Purdue University and currently works as a Realtor® in Grand Rapids, Michigan. His articles have appeared in Popular Entertainment Studies and American Studies.

Witness astounding feats of physics Hurry! Hurry! Come one, come all. Meet a man who can pull two railroad passenger cars with his teeth and a real-life human cannon ball. Come face to face with a dead rattlesnake that still bites. And unlock the secrets to the magician's bodiless head. Welcome to Jearl Walker's Flying Circus of Physics, 2nd Edition, where death-defying stunts, high-flying acrobatics, strange curiosities, and mind-bending illusions are all part of everyday life. You don't need a ticket; you only need to look to the world around you to uncover these fascinating feats of physics. Completely updated and expanded, this Second Edition of Jearl Walker's best-selling book features more than 700 thoroughly intriguing questions about relevant, fun, and completely real physical phenomena. Detailed explanations and references to outside sources guide your way through the problems. You'll discover answers to such questions as: * Can you start a fire with ice? * Why does the sky turn green just before a tornado? * Why do wintergreen LifeSavers glow in the dark when you bite them? * If you are falling in an elevator, should you try to jump up at the last second or lay flat against the floor? * How do electric eels produce their electric field? * Why is wet sand darker than dry sand? * What causes an oasis mirage? * Why do stars twinkle? * Could you drive a car on a ceiling?

Late one evening as the stars begin to twinkle, Harper and her friends are flying on the scarlet umbrella when they see a girl running on air, skipping along a tightrope. She leads them to the Circus of Dreams, suspended in the air by hot air balloons. There, they meet the mermaid acrobat, the spectacular circus baker, the mysterious fortune teller and the acrobatics troupe, all more spectacular than one could dream. But as they learn more about the Circus of Dreams, Harper learns a secret about her past that is more than magic. . . . Harper and the Circus of Dreams continues the adventures of Harper and her friends in a magical mystery like no other. An enchanting story of friendship, music, and magic featuring a diverse cast, brought to life through stunning illustrations, this is a book to be shared and treasured.

A new edition of a “dazzlingly seductive” fever dream written in “brilliant poetic vernacular” (Bookforum) by a beloved poet and cultural critic, now with an introduction by Rachel Kushner. For five years, concert pianist Theo Mangrove has been living at his family’s home in East Kill, New York, recovering from a nervous breakdown that derailed his career, and attempting to relieve his relentless polysexual appetite in the company of male hustlers, random strangers, music students, his aunt, and occasionally his wife. As he prepares for a comeback recital in Aigues-Mortes, a walled medieval town in southern France, he becomes obsessed with the idea that the Italian circus star Moira Orfei must join him there to perform alongside him. Extravagantly (and tragicomically) describing his hallucinatory plans in a series of twenty-five notebooks, he assembles an incantatory meditation on performance, failure, fame, decay, and delusion. "If Debussy and Robert Walser had collaborated on an opera, it would sound like this. --John Ashbery

Running yet again from bullies who have no reason to pick on him other than because of his parents successful careers, Sammy leaps into his mother's car one afternoon and she decides he must change schools. They meet Sir Lok Ragnarok, Headmaster of Dragamas School for Dragon Charming, and things change very quickly. But as he settles in, Sammy learns of a dark fate hanging over the school. An enemy, known only as the Shape, is trying to destroy all dragons and close the school, unless Sir Ragnarok can pay their ransom. Not wanting to return to his old school and the bullies, Sammy and his new friends Dixie Deane and Darius Murphy set about uncovering who or what is behind the Shape and ensuring the school can continue. Their adventure uncovers old secrets both within the school and the mysterious lands above the school that they visit. Sammy's journey tests him to the limit, cements his friendships and increases his skills which will be used in his coming years at Dragamas.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER The true story of two African-American brothers who were kidnapped and displayed as circus freaks, and whose mother endured a 28-year struggle to get them back. The year was 1899 and the place a sweltering tobacco farm in the Jim Crow South town of Truevine, Virginia. George and Willie Muse were two little boys born to a sharecropper family. One day a white man offered them a piece of candy, setting off events that would take them around the world and change their lives forever. Captured into the circus, the Muse brothers performed for royalty at Buckingham Palace and headlined over a dozen sold-out shows at New York's Madison Square Garden. They were global superstars in a pre-broadcast era. But the very root of their success was in the color of their skin and in the outrageous caricatures they were forced to assume: supposed cannibals, sheep-headed freaks, even "Ambassadors from Mars." Back home, their mother never accepted that they were "gone" and spent 28 years trying to get them back. Through hundreds of interviews and decades of research, Beth Macy expertly explores a central and difficult question: Where were the brothers better off? On the world stage as stars or in poverty at home? TRUEVINE is a compelling narrative rich in historical detail and rife with implications to race relations today.