Over a half century, a small Indiana town hosts a circus troupe during the off-seasons in linked stories “as graceful as any acrobat’s high-wire act” (San Francisco Chronicle). A Story Prize Finalist From 1884 to 1939, the Great Porter Circus made the unlikely choice to winter in an Indiana town called Lima, a place that feels as classic as Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio, and as wondrous as a first trip to the Big Top. In Lima, an elephant can change the course of a man's life—or the manner of his death. Jennie Dixianna entices men with her dazzling Spin of Death and keeps them in line with secrets locked in a cedar box. The lonely wife of the show’s manager has each room of her house painted like a sideshow banner, indulging her desperate passion for a young painter. And a former clown seeks consolation from his loveless marriage in his post-circus job at Clown Alley Cleaners. In this collection of linked stories spanning decades, Cathy Day follows the circus people into their everyday lives and brings the greatest show on earth to the page. “[An] exquisite story collection.” —The Washington Post “Often funny, always graceful, and rich with a mix of historical and imaginative detail.” —Tim O’Brien, author of The Things They Carried “Sublimely imaginative and affecting.” —The Boston Globe

Touching, unexpected, revealing short stories about life experiences shown with realism, sarcasm and personal touch. The reader will find himself as an external viewer or the principal character of each story. The book cover is created by Fabio Perla with sanguigna pencil on wood. The work was born from the inspiration of the stories contained in the book of the same name. The hand represents the profound soul of the human being that contains all the state of mind (the eye) we live everyday in the path of our life. The life is like a circus full of strong emotions, attractions but also tensions and fears. The lock and the key are the connection between our soul and the real life. (The Editor) Amazing, incredible and soul destroying things happen to us all. We can get so caught up in chasing glory and fame that we forget how magical everyday life is. This book is about love, death, young mums, breakups, feminism and more. It is about the amazing things that happen to us every day. Welcome to The Everyday circus. Erin May Kelly (Writer)

This multicultural children's book contains both English and Japanese script along with beautiful, colorful illustrations. Circus Day in Japan is the warmly-illustrated story of an exciting day spent by two Japanese children, Joji-chan and Koko-chan, at a circus. Joji-chan and Koko-chan delight at the new sights of their first circus, and young readers are gently introduced to Japanese customs and sites. Perfect for those interested in retro books, the simple text and artwork provide a nostalgic window into Japanese family life in the early 1950s. Originally written by Eleanor Coerr, author of the popular Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes, this English translation of a classic Japanese children's book accessible to a new generation of both English and Japanese speaking readers.

Beautifully illustrated and filled with rich historical detail and colorful anecdotes, this is a vibrant history for all those who have ever dreamed of running away to the circus, now in paperback. “Step right up!” and buy a ticket to the Greatest Show on Earth—the Big Top, containing death-defying stunts, dancing bears, roaring tigers, and trumpeting elephants. The circus has always been home to the dazzling and the exotic, the improbable and the impossible—a place of myth and romance, of reinvention, rebirth, second acts, and new identities. Asking why we long to soar on flying trapezes, ride bareback on spangled horses, and parade through the streets in costumes of glitter and gold, this captivating book illuminates the history of the circus and the claim it has on the imaginations of artists, writers, and people around the world. Traveling back to the circus’s early days, Linda Simon takes us to eighteenth-century hippodromes in Great Britain and intimate one-ring circuses in nineteenth-century Paris, where Toulouse-Lautrec and Picasso became enchanted with aerialists and clowns. She introduces us to P. T. Barnum, James Bailey, and the enterprising Ringling Brothers and reveals how they created the golden age of American circuses. Moving forward to the whimsical Circus Oz in Australia and to New York City’s Big Apple Circus and the grand spectacle of Cirque du Soleil, she shows how the circus has transformed in recent years. At the center of the story are the people—trick riders and tightrope walkers, sword swallowers and animal trainers, contortionists and clowns—that created the sensational, raucous, and sometimes titillating world of the circus.

This delightfully entertaining story celebrating mom as the best one-woman show on Earth! This humorous story celebrates mom as the best one-woman show on earth as she juggles everything that goes on during the day—she's a ringmaster, a wild beast tamer, a magician, and sometimes a clown. But her best stunt of all is the sandman show, when it's time for a good-night story. Luciana Navarro Powell's colorful, humorous illustrations are a perfect complement to her spirited, rhyming text.

A young girl watches as the activities across the street from her bus stop become a circus.

Jessica is a nine-year-old girl with a big imagination and an even bigger love for the circus. to her delight, the circus is coming to town!

An inside view of the changing world of the traveling circus, carnival and sideshow.

The story of the little circus girl Flora flourishes under the care of the gifted Sendak brothers in this, one of their few collaborations.

When the enigmatic Ringmaster asks 15-year-old Evanja (Evan) Leane to run away and join the circus, she says yes. Anywhere's got to be better than foster home Number Eight. Evan learns that this ragtag circus, a haven for throwaway teens, relies on more than spectacle and illusion. This circus is built on magic. Each of the teens possesses a donvrai, a true gift, that manifests only in the presence of the Ringmaster's mysterious Ju-Ju. Unlike many of the other teens who must wait for their donvrai to emerge, Evan's gift surfaces on her first night: she can read horses' minds. This would be totally awesome except she has been deathly afraid of horses since foster home Number Three. But circus is a dying art. If Evan wants to save her beloved new-found home, she must concoct a brilliant horse act that will bring in the crowds. And she'd better get over herself and get on with it fast; there's a traitor close to the Ringmaster who will stop at nothing to make sure she doesn't succeed. With B&W illustrations. Contains: some swearing. Recommended for age 14 and up.