The Circus Ship

There’s no shortage of bad guys in children’s stories, of course, but Mr. Paine is a little over the top in a story that feels contrived. Young kids -- for whom, typically, a circus is a source of delight rather than disgust -- may very well be taken aback by the sheer awfulness of this frightening grown-up bully. He hurls himself about the story, red-faced and corpulent, overwhelming the lighthearted touches. The rhyming text moves along easily enough, but the big twists in the plot -- the heroic tiger, and the sudden return of Mr. Paine -- are dispatched in a rush.
The idea of these strange animals stumbling ashore in 19th-century Maine is intrinsically fun, and Van Dusen offers some delightful scenes. One of the best moments is a simple hidden pictures-style two-page spread in which the 15 circus animals are disguised around the town: a camel as a haystack, an ostrich as a tree, and so on. Mr. Paine scratches his head in frustration, but kids will delight in finding each animal.

So brightly colored they veer toward gaudy, the best illustrations invite kids to explore the ways the circus animals have become part of village life.