[.ca] Backyard Circus (ISBN 1554510120)

Spectacular !!:
"Toronto writer Jill Bryant who now lives in England has written a dynamic guide to creating a circus in your backyard. In humorous prose, she teaches kids to clown, juggle, tumble, mime, and stage-manage. Bryant shows how to build on existing talents, such as ballet and gymnastics moves, math brains, and a ready wit. Even very small kids can be involved, since Bryant is careful not to suggest anything more dangerous than jumping over a lawn chair. With panache, Bryant describes how to make a megaphone, create phony weights, and do magic tricks that are visually effective and more straightforward than those frustrating ones in commercial kits. The book is bursting with good ideas, such as ways to pack a punch with animal acts using only children in costumes, and tightrope numbers with a skipping rope laid on the grass. Sidebars provide fascinating potted histories of related subjects, such as the Cirque de Soleil and Marcel Marceau. Bryant's Circus is one kids can truly organize and see through to opening night all on their own, learning a lot about performance and production in the process. The author also slyly slips in lessons in manners and personal responsibility, devoting the final chapter to cleaning up the big top and writing thank-you notes to those who donated props and such." --Quill and Quire

Packed Full of Fun For Your Very Own Circus!!:
Jill Bryant has written a very complete and entertaining guide for kids to use in setting up their very own "backyard circus". She has supplied many useful ideas for the actual setup as well as background (ex. the meaning of the word "circus" is defined using interesting historical facts as well). Kids can use the ideas in this book to make crafts such as clown faces and megaphones. User friendly boxes on the pages include the ever popular knock knock jokes and riddles. Teachers will find a wealth of information in this book. I t would be very useful for a school or class "circus" since Jill Bryant has included ideas for using written skills (thank you notes), organizational skills (planning the circus) and certainly artistic opportunities and many more fun ways to cover the curriculum requirements in a way that students will love.

Fantastic Book for Family Fun:
This is an extraordinarily entertaining and delightful book of activities for children, and for parent's with their children. Many kids books simply include a bunch of unrelated tasks and projects, many of which are completely impractical. This book is different. It offers a number of activities that can be accomplished with relative ease with materials that are on hand in almost any house. The projects can be done separately or they can be done, over time, to lead up to your family's very own backyard circus. If you and your kids have been to a circus recently and they want more, then this the book for them. With it you can make more circus fun and your own family circus.