Sidewalk Circus By: Paul Fleishman

This is not my favorite picturebook. I am not quite sure why. Maybe because I have always had mixed feelings about the circus. It was also a little confusing to me why a wordless picturebook needed an author and an illustrator. No offense to either artist but it just struck me as odd. There are qualities about the book I did enjoy. First of all, my 4 year old has had two experiences with a "big city". One was a family trip to Manhattan and the other was a trip to Washington D.C. with her grandparents. Immediately that is where our conversation went. She pointed out all the things in the book that reminded her of those trips. Urban life is quite different from life in Gloucester County Virginia and I think that it is good that my daughter has been exposed to both at an early age. Another thing that was intriguing about this wordless book were the artist's use of the shadow to show what was going on in the imaginations of the children watching the spectacle of everyday life as they waited on the bus. The colors in this book are vivid and intense. The have an almost "circus" feel to them. The primary colors that you would expect to see in a circus are the most prominent colors in the paintings. My daughter has only one experience with the circus and not all of the stereo typical circus acts were present. So I found myself having to explain the ideas behind many of the illustrations. I think that many children will be lacking in the appropriate background knowledge necessary to fully appreciate this book. In my opinion this is one of those "children's" books that is more suited to adults.