A hilarious satire on small-town prejudice
It all started with the Halibuts. Then came Elmira Degoochy the snake lady. Then the Flying Gambinis -- all seven of them and their mother. And Mrs. Harrison the fortune-teller, and Mr. Wydel the strongman . . .
These are the new residents of Springfield, the formerly peaceful Midwestern town where up to now young Ivy's life had been pretty uneventful. Ivy becomes fast friends with Alfred Halibut, who is an aspiring writer like herself and the son of a circus publicity manager. She also befriends the other circus people who have moved into town. But many of her neighbors are not feeling kindly about this invasion of strange characters. Tensions somersault into a climactic tangle at the Springfield bake-off. In the midst of hurtling pies, one voice alone can bring peace and tolerance back to the community. When the Circus Came to Town is Polly Horvath's funniest novel to date, packed with vivid exaggeration and slapstick scenarios.
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Polly Horvath is the author of An Occasional Cow, No More Cornflakes, and The Happy Yellow Car. She lives in Victoria, British Columbia.
How many circus families can a small town tolerate? That's the ostensible premise for this rollicking ode to silliness, starring Ivy, a disheveled fifth-grade smart-aleck, and her new friend Alfred Halibut, whose father has just retired from a traveling circus. At first, the townspeople are intrigued when circus families who crave all-American normalcy move to placid Springfield. But the civic tolerance level dips markedly when Elmira the Snake Lady starts leashing her snakes and taking them for walks around the block, and when the Flying Gambinis start collecting garages for a backyard hobby. All the characters in this book are joyfully eccentric; observed by sharp-tongued narrator Ivy, their giddy characterizations acquire a toothy edge. Ivy and her lute-playing mother (in church, she's in a group called Lutes for Lent) occasion cunning parodies of parochial suburban life, and so does the climax, which involves mint cupcakes and rigging a church bake-off. Horvath (An Occasional Cow) remains a master of the middle-grade comedy. Ages 8-12.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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