Sidewalk Circus by Paul Fleischman and Kevin Hawkes

The cover of the book shows the shadow of a sign worker man appearing as a ringleader of a circus. This wordless picture book invites the reader to eagerly turn pages from the cover to the endpages through the front matter through the illustrated story through to the back cover where the illustrator's use of circus figure shadows for normal people and characters on a city street. Fleischman and Hakes utilize light on the illustrations to highlight the shadowing effects and to portry the people on the streets of daily city life as circus performers. The onlookers are either city people shadowed off to the side or the little girl on the bench illustrated in bright colors among the people in the shadows. The story portrays a construction worker as a tight rope walker, a delivery man as a Goliath, the strongman, two boys skateboarding as clowns, a cook flipping pancakes is a juggler, etc. Most pages are full-bleeds with a few framed pictures of the girl sitting on a bench watching the "show." Towards the end of the book the girl boards a bus and a young boy walking toward the bench takes her place as onlooker at the circus-like action of the city. This book invites a "read-aloud" opportunity for an adult to make up a story with the pictures and encouraging a child to create parts to the story. What a wonderful follow-up to a trip to the circus, and what an opportunity to teach a child how to make connections!