Both a great American adventure and a rare entry into a sheltered world, Under the Big Top describes one man's pursuit of every child's fantasy: running away to join the circus. Bruce Feiler's unforgettable year as a clown will forever change your view of one of the world's oldest art forms and remind you of how dreams can go horribly wrong -- and then miraculously come true.

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

"A girl is excited when the circus comes to town, but her family on the farm is too busy with chores to enjoy it"--

Allie, Bella, Carly, and Marlo, eight-year-old performers in the Stardust Circus, are normally best friends--but when a film crew comes to do a television special on the circus, Allie's dreams of being a Hollywood star threaten to drive a wedge between them.

"Maddy Adriana knows that magic is real. All her life, her heart has pulled her toward things too perfect to be ordinary, things no one else can see. And then there's the bracelet she's worn since she was a baby; a bracelet that grows as she grows and doesn't come off. Knowing that magic exists has made it a little easier to be a foster kid bounced between homes. Then, one day, Maddy feels a...tug. It leads her to Il Circo delle Strade, the magical...

Starting in the 1870s, the barns, icehouses, gymnasiums and empty theaters of central Illinois provided the practice sites for aerial performers whose names still command reverence in the annals of American circus history. Meet Fred Miltimore and the Green Brothers, runaways from the Fourth Ward School who became the first Bloomington-born flyers. Watch Art Concello, a ten-year-old truant, become first a world-class flyer, then a famous trapeze impresario...

"An unlikely-and entirely unforgettable-tale of a most unusual friendship between Flora, an elephant calf stolen from her African home, and David, the circus impresario and magician, who adopts, trains, and ultimately liberates her in a tale freely inspired by actual events"--

"Mimi steps into the spotlight in this charming debut with an emotional heart. If you were to imagine an extraordinary moment of destiny, I bet you wouldn't imagine it in a kitchen on a particularly ordinary Wednesday. I bet you wouldn't imagine a plate of cheese and crackers or a replacement best friend--but this was my moment. Because when my Dad left to be a trick high diver in Mr. Morelli's Big Top Circus Extravaganza, he left his ordinary life...

"When Great Aunt Beauregard announces her intentions to bring budding engineer John into the family business of coffin manufacturing for the rest of his natural life--and, worse, to teach his sister Page to embalm--John decides enough is enough, and the two of them head out on the lam, maybe joining the circus"--

A storm brings a floating circus to the City of Clouds, and when Harper and her friends attend they move ever closer to the secret of her origins.