Full Text Reviews: Booklist - 05/15/2017 When Emma and her family spy the tail end of a circus parade, she begs to go. Her parents, though, say there’s too much work on the farm: “with winter coming, there’s just no time for a circus.” Downtrodden, Emma returns home, but the next morning, she’s in for a surprise: a circus bear on a unicycle comes to the farm! Her parents are too distracted to notice, so she and the bear play in the barn all day. The next day, the bear brings two seals, and the day after that, he brings three monkeys, and so on, until a menagerie of circus animals and a 10-person brass band fill the barn, and Emma puts on her own circus for her family, who are happy they spared the time. Davenier’s jumbled, energetic ink-and-wash illustrations have an old-fashioned feel, which matches the tone of the story (and an old-fashioned idea about circus animals, which have become quite controversial in recent years). With cumulative repetition and an imaginative plot, this is a great pick for group read-alouds. - Copyright 2017 Booklist. School Library Journal - 06/01/2017 PreS-Gr 2—The circus is in town, and Emma longs to see it. "Sorry," says her dad. There are too many farm chores to be finished before winter. But does a bear on a unicycle wink at Emma as it zips by? Believe it or not, over the course of several days, more and more circus performers show up to play with Emma in the barn, exiting only when Mama hollers, "Supper!" Nobody else notices a thing until the day the family throw open the barn doors and find Emma's circus. What a performance they witness, with acrobats, jugglers, sword swallowers, elephants, camels, lions, and, of course, the original unicycling bear. Davenier's happy, splashy ink and watercolor illustrations tell the story with dynamic, cluttered detail. VERDICT A fun and rollicking read-aloud to share with a group. Children will linger over each increasingly crowded page, enjoying the ways the farm animals get into the act.—Susan Weitz, formerly at Spencer-Van Etten School District, Spencer, NY - Copyright 2017 Publishers Weekly, Library Journal and/or School Library Journal used with permission. Loading...
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