"Five miles off the coast of Maine and sightly overdue, a circus ship was steaming south in fog as thick as stew."
You could use this opening sentence as a way to begin your exploration of this book. If you are reading this in Australia, you will need a map to locate Maine. Then talk about what 'slightly overdue' might mean and the ramifications of this phrase. The fog is thick - how will that make an impact. What should the captain of the ship do? OH, and wait a minute what is a circus ship? Who or what might be onboard?
The next page helps a little. On board there are fifteen animals, and the ship is heading to perform in Boston. Over the page and yes, the captain - Mr Carrington - does think the ship should wait for things to clear but the aptly named Mr Paine, the circus boss, disagrees and so the ship continues on its journey but of course disaster strikes. The ship hits a reef and everyone, animals too, is thrown overboard. Luckily all of the animals can swim and so they make it safely to shore landing in a small village.
"They pulled themselves up on the shore - bedraggled, cold and beat - then staggered to the village on weary, wobbly feet."
The village people are amazed to find all of these exotic animals surrounding their houses. That night a building catches on fire. The circus tiger has been trained to jump through fire. He dives in and bravely rescues little Emma Rose.
"The tiger's risky rescue changed everybody's mind - the animals weren't bothersome; the animals were kind."
That could be the end of this story BUT the circus owner is coming. He wants his animals back. The people of the village hatch a cunning plan. You will need to look very closely at this double page scene. Can you spot the fifteen animals? Luckily Mr Paine is not at all observant.
This book is based on a true story. In 1836 a ship named The Royal Tar was sailing from St. John New Brunswick to Portland Maine. There were 103 passengers and the circus - a elephant, two lions, a tiger, a leopard, six horses, two camels, a gnu, two pelicans, snakes, birds and a full band. There was a disaster. The boiler overheated and the ship went up in flames. Many people and most of the animals perished but there is evidence that the elephant did end up on a nearby island and exotic snakes were also seen on a different island many years after the wreck. I found this podcast (15 minutes) which recounts these events.
The Circus Ship was published in 2009 but the paperback version [9780763655921] is still available. Here is the webpage for Chris van Dusen. Read more about how he creates his art. If you haven't discovered his work, I highly recommend all of these:
With an older group of students aged 10+ The Circus Ship could be a terrific way to introduce this Australian middle grade book:
When you pick up this book make sure you share the title page with your class or young reading companion. It's a terrific example of why fonts are important.
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