The Circus Ship by Chris Van Dusen

Pin It

Every week I say to myself, now it's time to do a review of a disappointing book. 

But, then, I postpone the "bad book" for one more post. 

My blog is mostly about book recommendations. 

Great books - I want to recommend the best.

So, indeed, how can I keep Chris Van Dusen's The Circus Ship waiting any longer. I feel guilty even thinking about leaving it aside again.

It's a gem! A classic! No.... wait. We don't need the cliches.

Just open it - and you will see. It is simply so incredibly, incredibly good.
The Circus Ship first blows you away with its fantastic art. 

Van Dusen's animals look as real as if you were watching a National Geographic special, but at the same time they are as cute as the cutest from Disney's menagerie. 

Put all this into a 19th century setting and sprinkle it all with a masterful text in perfect rhyme.

Secondly, The Circus Ship has an involving story about a circus ship that carries fifteen animals to Boston for a circus show, but it smashes into an underwater ledge. 

The good Captain Carrington and the spiteful circus manager Mr Paine manage to save themselves in a boat, while the animals fend for themselves. 

They swim until the dawn breaks and reach the shore of an island. 

Villagers are shell-shocked to see the newcomers ("There is an ostrich in the outhouse! There is a hippo in the spring!"), but welcome them and even protect them (after a tiger helps to save a baby girl from a fire). 

Together the locals and the animals manage to trick an angry Mr Paine who comes with a new ship in an attempt to reclaim his show circus.

Since reading the book, the calous Mr. Paine has become a new negative role model for my twins. 

On the other hand, they are quick to contrast him with the ship's Captain Carrington - "who was honest and sincere". 

This would be a banal contrast at most, where it not for Van Dusen's magical art that captures the essence of the two principal human characters in the story.

Finally, Chris Van Dusen's rhyming is spot on, while the rich vocabulary and the dramatic aspect of the story are fantastic. 

My twins could not lift their eyes from the pages during our read aloud. Dusen had a stroke of genius when he hid all the animals (in fact they are hiding from Mr Paine) on a double page spread. 

The kids have a blast everytime we read this book to find all the hidden circus beasts, which are masterfully merged with their surroundings.

To those who have read Van Dusen's Mr Magee series - Down to the Sea with Mr. Magee, A Camping Spree With Mr. Magee (read my review) and Learning to Ski with Mr. Magee - there is even the added treat of discovering a minuscule "Mr Magee and his little dog Dee" inside The Circus Ship.

Curiously enough, the basic idea for The Circus Ship germinated from an actual event. 

Namely, according to Chris Van Dusen's note at the end of the book, the Royal Tar steamer carrying more than a hundred passengers and a complete circus was sailing from New Brunswick to Portland, Maine on October 25, 1836. 

The list of animals included an elephant, two lions, a tiger, a leopard, six horses, a gnu, two pelicans and exotic birds and serpents. 

The ship ran into a gale off the island of Vinalhaven and the ship went up in flames.

There were rumors afterwards that some of the animals survived by swimming over to nearby Brimstone Island. 

Of course, this story served only as a skeleton for the Circus Ship picture book that will certainly inspire children with its art and its masterful verses.

Although this is the latest Chris Van Dusen book that I purchased (I still don't have them all), I simply had to review this masterpiece first.