Sidewalk Circus

Sometimes I have a difficult time with wordless picturebooks because I flip through them too quickly. I’ve gone back to “read” this book a few times now, and I’m noticing more and more the use of shadow to make the circus come alive. Against buildings, ordinary people are transformed into performers with banners displaying their heroic efforts. The girl in this book is drawn with color to stand out in the shadowy audience of blurry faces waiting on a corner – she matches the colors of the city circus instead. Her face changes as she watches the events around her unfold, likening them to the circus. She claps for the clowns flying through the air, is nervous for the construction worker/tight rope walker, puts her hand to her mouth for the dentist and patient/daring sword swallowers, and even covers her eyes for the window washers/flying trapeze brothers. When she leaves her seat, she is replaced by a bright-eyed boy in colorful clothes.

I’m not a huge fan of the circus, but I believe its appeal is in death-defying feats or silly actions that draw a response from the audience, specifically kids. For a living, these performers do extraordinary things that cannot be found anywhere else! In this book, Fleischman and Hawkes have created an extraordinary world out of the ordinary. I am curious about how Fleischman and Hawkes worked together. The book is “presented by Paul Fleischman”, but there really isn’t any text. Does that just mean it was his idea and he needed an illustrator?