The Twelve Circus Rings

PreSchool-Grade 3-- "In the first circus ring, my sister saw with me a daredevil on a high wire." This clever variation on "The Twelve Days of Christmas" shows succeeding circus rings with more elephants, monkeys, clowns, and jugglers, up to the climactic page crowded with 12 animals laughing, 11 horseback riders, 10 leapers leaping, etc. Turn the page, and this simple picture book becomes a counting book ("How many people and animals are there in the entire circus?"); turn the page again, and Chwast introduces the interesting number patterns and mathemetical puzzles to be found in this cumulative rhyme. Although his pastel palette and flat blocks of black-outlined shapes give a static effect to even the most frenzied scenes, this technique allows the ever-accumulating details to be easily distinguished. Children will enjoy the varied characters in each new audience found along the bottom of the double-page spreads, and the antics of the clowns and monkeys are sure to please. Like Rodney Peppe's simpler Circus Numbers (Delacorte, 1985), this will work well in preschool story time, but will also find an audience with older children who enjoy mathemetical puzzles such as Each Orange Had Eight Slices (Greenwillow, 1992) or The King's Chessboard (Dial, 1988). --Caroline Parr, Central Rappahannock Regional Library, Fredericksburg, VA
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

A panoply of colorful circus characters gambol across the pages of this cumulative counting book, loosely derived from "The 12 Days of Christmas." Beginning with one daredevil on a high wire, the ever-changing spectacle reaches its climax: "In the twelfth circus ring, my sister saw with me twelve animals laughing, eleven horseback riders, ten leapers leaping . . . three monkeys playing, two elephants, and a daredevil on a high wire." In various rows (their numbers keyed to each ring), spectators in the foreground watch each energetic tableau, whose different characters are set against oddly blank light blue backgrounds. Chwast's ability, in this companion volume to Alphabet Parade , to pack so many of his glossy, simply outlined figures into coherent images is impressive, though some youngsters may miss the spark and details of big top life to be found, for example, in Peter Spier's Circus! The concluding four pages of mathematical permutations based on the book's performers provide especially absorbing material--the challenges here may well extend to the interests of older readers. Ages 4-8.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.