Wonder Show

Wonder Show 
by Hannah Barnaby

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, step inside Mosco’s Traveling Wonder Show, a menagerie of human curiosities and misfits guaranteed to astound and amaze! But perhaps the strangest act of Mosco’s display is Portia Remini, a normal among the freaks, on the run from McGreavy’s Home for Wayward Girls, where Mister watches and waits. He said he would always find Portia, that she could never leave. Free at last, Portia begins a new life on the bally, seeking answers about her father’s disappearance. Will she find him before Mister finds her? It’s a story for the ages, and like everyone who enters the Wonder Show, Portia will never be the same. (description from Amazon.com) 

Okay, okay...the girl who vowed never to read circus-themed books again must change her tune... I really enjoyed this one! I liked the historical setting and the gentle way that the "freaks" are part of the story.  They each have their own issues, both physical and emotional, but they are not as blatantly "freaky," I guess you would say, as they would be in an adult book.  I loved seeing how while Portia was at first overwhelmed and intimidated by their presence, she came to appreciate them all and be folded into part of their family. In fact, I loved Portia's determination to create her own fate and to find a family, even if eventually it's not her birth family.   

I thought this book had a great tone.  Historical, yet completely relatable in theme, with a strong main character.  I can't wait to see what Barnaby writes next... 

Full disclosure: Borrowed from my Library

Will Sparrow's Road

Will Sparrow's Road

by Karen Cushman

 

In his thirteenth year, Will Sparrow, liar and thief, becomes a runaway. On the road, he encounters a series of con artists—a pickpocket, a tooth puller, a pig trainer, a conjurer—and learns that others are more adept than he at lying and thieving. Then he reluctantly joins a traveling troupe of "oddities," including a dwarf and a cat-faced girl, holding himself apart from the "monsters" and resolving to be on guard against further deceptions. At last Will is forced to understand that appearances are misleading and that he has been his own worst deceiver. (description from Amazon.com)

 

While I enjoyed the setting of this book - the Elizabethan English market circuit - I found myself having a hard time really becoming invested in it.  I'm not sure if it just read too young for me or if it was because I found Will to be too naive to believe...or what. I loved seeing the sort-of birth of freak shows and how the market folk treated one another and what life was like on the road.  I also eventually enjoyed seeing Will figure life out and come to a happy ending, but until then I felt sort of ambivalent about the whole thing.

 

Full disclosure: Audio book received to review for SLJ