Circus of Dreams

Night Circus By Erin Morgenstern

“The circus arrives without warning. No announcements precede it. It is simply there, when yesterday it was not.” I'm not actually sure how I feel about this book.  I wasn't going to review it because of that but here I am.  I like it.  I think I do anyway.  Two old "magicians" have an ongoing challenge.  They select two contestants and they compete until the other can't anymore.  These particular contestants are Marco and Celia.  The venue is Les Cirque des Reves.  They create spectacular illusions within the circus attempting to best the other one.  The first half of the book is extremely mysterious.  Things begin to clear up later in the book but there seems to be some ends that do not get tied up.  WHO or WHAT is Alexander?  Who has this weird talent and where do they get it?  Never really a clear answer.  I love Poppet and Widget and their significant to the circus.  I like Kiko and Chandresh as they develop the mystery of the show.  I even like Marco as harsh and devoid of fun as he seems.  I don't really like Celia, however.  She comes off as kind of a flat character.  I wasn't totally unable to connect with her, I just wanted more from her.  It is a great story, great ideas.  I would like to be in or attend such an event!  The plot was not very driven, so it wasn't a terribly exiting book.  Interesting and magical are two words I would use to describe it and that is enough for me to recommend it!

Your mama is a cow...WHAT?!

Is Your Mama a Llama?

By Deborah Guarino

Illustrated by Steven Kellogg

This book was published in 1989, I'm pretty sure I read it to my kid sister in the early 90's!  If taken out of context, it could sound insulting!  Really though, it is about a silly llama that tries to figure out who tries to figure out which animals are the same species as he is.  He questions bats, seals, ducks, kangaroos and a handful of others before he gets it.  Other than just silliness, this book is fantastic for preschoolers.  Great rhyming and repitition.  It also helps kids identify animals by atributes.  I read this to Lula and Doodle while they were occupied with something else and not watching the pictures. They were able to guess most of the animals by their descriptions.  We bought this book so we can read it over and over!

Now that I am five, I know everything.

Room by Emma Donoghue


It is Jack's fifth birthday.  When he was four, he lived in Room, slept in Bed, ate on Table and played with Ma.  He had five book with pictures and five without.  He had a few various toys that were made of things such as cans and toilet paper rolls.  Ma is Jack's whole world and he is hers. When he is five, everything changes.  Ma has another name, many things he thought were just TV are real, outside Room and Skylight is not Outer Space.  He thought he know who he was and who Ma was but now everything is confusing.  He uses this quote from Alice in Wonderland to describe his confusion, "I hardly know, sir, just at present - at least I know who I was when I got up this morning, but I think I must have been changed several times since then."
It is hard to review this book without giving too much away.  It is told from the point of view of a five year old boy.  The first part is Jack describing his life in room to us.  The last half is Jack's discovery of the outside world.  Through his eyes we make all kinds of discoveries, such as "bees and humans should just wave, no touching."  We get to feel his first encounter with wind and rain.  We get to feel the frustration as he tries to figure out stairs and pulp and all kinds of other things that were previously part of Outer Space.
It is a gripping, funny, disturbing, emotional, philosophical book.  At one point Jack thinks, "When I was four I thought everything in TV was just TV, then I was five and Ma unlied about lots of it being pictures of real and outside being totally real.  Now I'm outside but it turns out lots of it isn't real at all.  Lots of the world seems to be a repeat."  It will make you laugh, cry and think.  I finished the book two days ago and haven't stopped thinking about it since.  I recommend it to all adults.