Circus Mirandus

Cassie Beasley's Circus Mirandus is a hopeful, magical story for 9 year olds about a boy who needs a miracle and an old promise that might still be good.

What happens

Micah Tuttle is ten. His grandfather is very ill upstairs, and his Great-Aunt Gertrudis has arrived to make sure things are done properly. She is not the warm sort of great-aunt. Micah reckons that on the inside she is probably cough syrup.

There's a kettle in their kitchen with a little silver bird on the top, and the bird whistles when the water boils. That whistle is Micah's favourite part of the day. Aunt Gertrudis yanks the kettle off the heat before it can sing.

That's the whole situation in one small moment, and it tells you everything about how this book works. Big feelings arrive in tiny domestic things. A fridge covered in medicine schedules instead of drawings. A cup of tea poured quietly down the sink.

Grandpa Ephraim can't get enough air any more. When he laughs now it comes out as blub glub, the same sound the kettle makes when it's dying. Micah knows what that means, even though nobody has said it.

Then his grandfather tells him he has written a letter. Not to a doctor. To the Lightbender, at Circus Mirandus, the circus from all those bedtime stories. And a parrot flew in through the window and took it away.

So the stories were true. And if they're true, then so is the miracle the Lightbender once promised.

Worth knowing before you hand it over

This is a book about a much-loved grandad who is dying, and it doesn't soften that. He is ill on the first page, he gets worse while Micah is sitting on his bed, and there's a breathing machine on the other side of a locked door. It's also mentioned, plainly and early, that Micah's parents died in a boating accident when he was four.

For a child who has recently lost a grandparent, this might be too near the bone just now. For a child who is curious rather than raw about that sort of thing, it's tender and often very funny, and it puts an enormous amount of hope on the table.

What to read next

Beasley has another one here that works the same way. Tumble & Blue puts two children from two feuding families in a swamp at midnight, both lumbered with a fate they never chose and both determined to swap it.