Ocean State Libraries

Oliver the elephant looks elsewhere for employment after learning that the circus already has enough elephants.

"Heartbreaking." - Kirkus Reviews "Amanda Davis writes gently, even poetically about extraordinary brutality. She has a distinctively creepy, even noirish sensibility." - New York Times Book Review "An utterly unique take on what it means to run away and join a circus." - Elizabeth Strout, author of AMY AND ISABELLE "This book is a circus Pygmalion -- a spectacular tale of injury, heartbreak, and metamorphosis." - Jonathan Ames, author of The Extra...

"Tom tells all about his bicycle, his ride to work past trucks, cars, and even elephants, and his work as a circus performer."--

Leaping lizards, marching snakes, a bear on the high wire, and others perform in a somewhat unusual circus.

Trix's life in boarding school as an orphan charity case has been hard but when an alluring young Ringmaster invites her, a gymnast, to join Circus Galacticus she gains an entire universe of deadly enemies and potential friends, along with a chance to unravel secrets of her own past.

"Told from two viewpoints, sisters Lo and Rita spend their lives flying high on the trapeze, but real danger comes as secrets begin to unravel the tightknit circus community and Lo finds love with a "flattie."" --

Loving her family but disliking the circus that is her grandparents' life, Lily is devastated when her grandfather passes away, a loss that leads her to develop an unexpected bond with her grandfather's equally grieving elephant.

"Seventeen-year-old Victoria escapes an abusive father by joining the VanDrexel Family Circus in 1965, and fifty years later her writings guide her granddaughter, sixteen-year-old Callie, in facing the uncharted waters of public high school." --

Seventeen-year-old Oregon teenager Kelsey forms a bond with a circus tiger who's actually one of two brothers, Indian princes Ren and Kishan, who were cursed to live as tigers for eternity, and she travels with him to India where the tiger's curse may be broken once and for all.