Howard, J. J. That Time I Joined the Circus.

Howard, J. J.  That Time I Joined the Circus.   Scholastic Press  2013  262p  $17.99      ISBN 978-0-545-43381-5    hs  Realistic Fiction E-BN 

This refreshingly original plot takes the reader on a journey with Alex/Xanda/X (depending on her mood) as she leaves everything that is familiar to her to try to find her mother. The reader feels Alex’s emotions, empathizes with her, and finds him or herself rooting for her to find happiness and a place to call home.

When Alex’s father dies suddenly, in the middle of her senior year of high school in New York, she is informed by her father’s attorney that he has sent her inheritance on to her mother in Florida. Having left the family to join the circus years ago, Alex’s estranged mother’s last known whereabouts were in Florida with the circus.  Alex finds herself on a Greyhound bus to the circus, but finds when she arrives that her mother had left the circus several months before.  Alone, and with no money, Alex joins the circus.

This exciting page-turner of an adventure involves the reader on the difficult voyage of the lone, struggling Alexandra.  Allusions to musical lyrics that begin each chapter and are woven through the story add intrigue.  What transpires along the way and the ending that results are not what the reader expects.  This is a different, modern, and fun story that will engage and entice young-adult and reluctant readers.

Circuses-Fiction                                                                                             --Virginia McGarvey