Customer Reviews

Emeline at the Circus

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The artwork is exceptional. Elephants, giraffes, tigers, clowns and of course Emeline move through the pages with unequaled grace and cheerfulness. What appears to be a blotch of primary colours at first glance is almost magically transformed into subtle and tender characters who might justly be called the sophisticated french painter Raoul Dufys great-grand-children. Two-year-old readers already take delight in following the hidden plot which the adult reader is likely to miss at first reading. A wonderful surprise and sweet lesson for the rereading parent. However, dont overwhelm little ones with the text. Miss Splinters commentary is more likely to find an interested and laughing audience in 5-7 year-old children.

I got this book for my 7 year old son from our local library because the title sounded like fun and because it received the "Best Illustrated Children's Book" award from the NY Times Book review.

5 stars for: the illustrations in this book are very vibrant and colorful. Some people may find them to be a bit "busy", but I think that it plays to the concept that a circus is a "busy" place with a lot of different things going on all at one time. The pictures capture the essence of a circus beautifully.

3 stars for: the story in general. While the test is quite factual, it does not really keep the attention of a young reader who was just looking for a fun story about a circus and nothing else. The premise of the story is that a teacher takes her class to the circus and she reads facts from a book about whatever action is taking place at that point in time. For example, when the horse comes out, she reads, "Observe the graceful horse. Latin name, Equus. A hoofed, herbivorous mammal. Relative of the zebra and donkey. Horses travel in herds." And so it goes throughout the book. If you are looking to learn a lot of factual things about animals and other circus attractions, then this is the book for you. If you are just looking for a fun story, it is not. Because the book contains so much factual information, you spend a lot of time explaining what certain words means to a younger reader. Words like combustion, prehensile, mimosa trees, herbivorous, nocturnal, and deltoids are just a few things that needed to be explained to my son. About 3/4 way through the book, he asked if we could stop reading it and he went and got another book to read. It just did not keep his interest.

Spoiler alert: I went back and finished reading the book myself and then I had to go back and look at the illustrations again. As it turns out, little Emeline has wanderd away from her class and she is in every spread of the book taking part in all the activities that are going on at the circus. It is a very cute idea, however, if you are not aware that this is the premise of the book on the first reading, you may not notice it until the end of the book (hence the re-read). Once you are aware of this, your child might enjoy looking fer her throughout the book, and the story will make more sense when you get to the ending.

I would recommend getting this book from the library before you invest in your own copy to make sure that they enjoy the story filled mostly with facts, but illustrated exquisitely.

I found the quality of the illustrations very uneven. It can be difficult to follow Emeline from page to page, which is the comic premise. I enjoyed the book and recommend it, but counsel modest expectations on the illustration. Some are fabulous. All are delightfully bright and intense.