Review by New York Times Review
P.T. BARNUM may not have invented the museum, the freak show, the zoo or the circus, but he was (during the 19th century, anyway) their greatest American impresario, a canny businessman who was just a little luckier, more energetic and more imaginative than his competitors. As a result, he wound up the most influential progenitor of much that is spectacular, vulgar, cheerfully phony and just plain fun about American popular culture. He's not only one of the founders of the circus that still bears his name, but he's also a direct ancestor of everything from Bat Boy in the Weekly World News to all those pseudoscience shows on the History Channel like "MonsterQuest" to the careers of such enterprising vulgarians and spectaclemongers as D.W. Griffith, Jerry Bruckheimer and the creators of reality television. Barnum himself took a refreshingly simple view of his career, saying to an interviewer at the end of his life, "I am a showman, and all the gilding shall make nothing else of me." Candace Fleming's lively and well-researched biography, "The Great and Only Barnum," takes an evenhanded approach to her subject, though it's clear from the start that she has real affection for him. Through a vivid central narrative, fascinating period photos and informative sidebars on everything from the history of the museum to the uses of circus slang, Fleming gives us an engrossing portrait of a Yankee entrepreneur who was inventive, shrewd and fundamentally happy; he loved to entertain people. Although he's best known today for his circus, Barnum made his reputation with his American Museum, located in New York on lower Broadway from 1842 to 1868. In the best chapter in the book, Fleming evokes the experience of a stroll through the building's seven "grand saloons," where one might see miniatures of a Venetian canal; gawp at midgets, Siamese twins and bearded ladies; visit the nation's first aquarium; and wander through the zoo on the top floor. From the start of his career, Barnum was labeled by some "a Prince of Humbugs" - Mark Twain said he represented "everything crass and self-serving in the American character" - but Fleming takes a more nuanced view. Frauds like the "Fejee Mermaid" (actually the upper body of a monkey sewn onto the tail of a fish) were pretty easy to see through, and Barnum himself understood that half the fun was being in on the joke. "Most people enjoy a harmless hoax," he said, and as one of his employees pointed out, "First Mr. Barnum humbugs them, and then they pay to hear him tell how he did it." For much of the book, Barnum comes across as a fundamentally good-hearted old huckster, like Frank Morgan as the man behind the curtain in "The Wizard of Oz." Indeed, according to Fleming, Barnum didn't even deliver the line most associated with him: "There's a sucker born every minute." Apparently that sentiment came from a competitor, surveying the lines outside Barnum's museum. Madame Josephine Clofulia, from "The Great and Only Barnum." As fond as she is of her subject, Fleming is scrupulously honest about the less savory aspects of his character. She makes it clear that he was a bad husband and a neglectful father. When his first wife died in 1873, Barnum was traveling in Europe - he got the news while buying racing ostriches in Hamburg - and not only did he not come home for the funeral, he remarried less than 13 weeks later, to an Englishwoman 40 years younger. More to the point, much of what he did professionally will strike the modern reader as cruel and exploitative. His first successful attraction was an elderly slave named Joice Heth whom he purchased (though Barnum said "rented") in 1835 and exhibited as George Washington's wet nurse, claiming she was 161 years old. This distasteful episode is followed by a career built in large part on the display of "human curiosities," not to mention countless exotic animals who often didn't survive long in his care. He lost a whole zooful of animals not once but twice, when his two museums in New York burned down one after the other. The saddest animal story in the book is that of Jumbo, the giant elephant Barnum purchased from a London zoo (to the outrage of the British public) and displayed at his circus, making millions. Even after Jumbo was killed in a collision with a train, Barnum managed to milk more money out of him, displaying both the elephant's skin, stretched over a wooden frame, and his skeleton, as a "double Jumbo" exhibit. Still, as Fleming is careful to note, Barnum was a man of his times, and perhaps not as callous as he seems in retrospect. The sideshow acts he employed in the American Museum were well paid by the standards of the day, and rather than being displayed like zoo animals, they mingled freely with visitors, shaking hands and answering questions. And while his behavior with Joice Heth was shameful under any circumstances, nearly 30 years later, during his successful run for the Connecticut Legislature in 1864, Barnum argued that black citizens should be given the vote. All in all, Fleming's biography of Barnum manages to be both honest and fun - which is more than you could say about Barnum himself - and the volume's handsome design, giving the book the look and feel of an old-time scrapbook, evokes both the era and Barnum's breathless showmanship. For younger readers who aren't necessarily interested in the history of American popular entertainment, Johanna Wright's lovely picture book "The Secret Circus" approaches the subject in a strikingly different way. Here, Parisian mice sneak out at night to visit "a circus that is so small and so secret, only the mice know how to find it." The portly mice troop unseen through the city to a big (or little?) top under a carousel in a park, where they eat peanuts and popcorn and watch circus mice juggle, perform acrobatics and tame a cat. The text has a gently incantatory rhythm, while the book's twilight colors perfectly evoke the magic hour when shadows deepen even as the lights become more luminous. While "The Great and Only Barnum" emphasizes the spectacle and razzle-dazzle of the circus, Wright's book is all about expectation and mystery, that effervescent moment when the spotlight first hits the ringmaster, and all the faces in the dark around the ring light up with anticipation. From "The Secret Circus." James Hynes's new novel, "Next," will be published in March.
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [December 6, 2009]
Review by Booklist Review
In this quiet and unassuming picture book, Wright dreams up a Parisian circus that is so itty-bitty and well hidden that only the mice know how to find it. Each spread teases this conceit out, morsel by morsel: Only the mice know when to go there shows a mouse family finishing up chores and growing excited; Only the mice know what to wear accompanies a scene of the family helping each other into their finest attire; Only the mice know how to get there shows them traveling across the city sky in a mini hot-air balloon, the Eiffel Tower sparkling in the distance. The mice are blobby and friendly, decked out in 1920s-era French styles of wide-brimmed hats and striped shirts. Dominated by muted browns and dark greens, the artwork is inviting and comforting with just a hint of mystery. The closing scene, in which a mouse slyly looks at the reader and shushes a finger, engenders a sense of inclusion in the mice's little world, which children will recognize in their own family's happy secrets.--Chipman, Ian Copyright 2009 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
A charismatic group of French mice enjoy a night out in Wright's dreamy, muted debut. "Somewhere, deep in the city of Paris, there is a circus that is so small, and so secret... only the mice know how to find it." The pointy noses and dumpling bodies of the mice are inked in spidery lines against a dusty nighttime backdrop on rough canvas. Each line of text teases readers with a secret ("Only the mice know what to wear"), and each spread reveals it: in this case, mice help each other into patchwork yet fancy dresses, shirts and hats. Beside the text, "Only the mice know how to get there...," a group of mice float through the air in a hot-air balloon, the lights of the city below and the Eiffel Tower sparkling in the distance. More spreads reveal a miniature circus under a carousel, with jugglers, a clown and a cat-taming act. There's magic in the air, as bright lights and stars twinkle, but Wright keeps the events and the repeating form low-key and lullabylike-just right for bedtime. Ages 2-6. (Apr.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by School Library Journal Review
PreS-K-Through simple, rhythmic prose, Wright provides a glimpse at the secret held by the mice of Paris-a clandestine circus known only to them. "Only the mice know when to go there./Only the mice know what to wear./Only the mice know how to get there." Rustic canvas paintings done in a subdued palette cast a mood of quiet mystery over the nocturnal activities of the mice. The artwork provides the clever details that the text never reveals. (How is the circus hidden? Beneath a merry-go-round. What does one eat there? Peanuts, popcorn, and candy.) The theme of a hidden world, universally popular with children, finds satisfying expression here. A delightful addition to any collection.-Jayne Damron, Farmington Community Library, MI Copyright 2009 Reed Business Information.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Horn Book Review
Somewhere, deep in the city of Paris, there is a circus that is so small, and so secret...only the mice know how to find it." In this hushed tale, muted illustrations show Parisian mice gathering under the base of a merry-go-round for their own private circus. Wright's soft art is captivating; the quiet text is effectively spare. (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Somewhere, beneath the twinkling lights of Paris, there is a circus. It is a secret circus. Only the mice know where it is. Only the mice know when to go. When it is time, families don their best patchwork frocks and wide-brimmed hats. They climb into walnut-shell hot-air balloons or scurry in long lines, head to tail, as the Eiffel Tower stretches to point the way. Only the mice know how it's hidden. Only the mice know what they'll see there. Amid whiskered cannonball daredevils, tottering pyramids of tiny clowns and the bravest of allthe housecat tamerWright tells a sweet, lulling story. Her roly-poly mice are shaped like candy-drop kisses and the hush of the gentle, repetitive text whispers through the pages. The placement of opaque, black-outlined characters against gossamer-tinted painted-canvas backgrounds only heightens the surreal intimacy of the experience. It is, after all, a secret. A quiet, comforting debut, best shared snuggled close together. (Picture book. 2-6) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
