I almost want to give this book 4 stars. Not that the story was anything out of the ordinary really...boy meets girl, boy falls in love with girl, girl is with someone else, blah blah. But the whole idea of the traveling circus, the circus train, the sideshow freaks...really sparked my interest and imagination. And I hate the idea of the circus! I hate the idea of any animal in captivity, especially performing animals. Something about the descriptions of the "old time" circus, entertainment at a time when there were few real diversions from the cruel realities of life, really spoke to me. My dad used to tell the story of "playing hooky" from school so that he could watch the circus set up in an empty lot, getting caught (of course!), meriting the punishment of no recess, and climbing out of a second story window to play at recess anyway, take that Sister Andrea! This book calls to mind my dad's uncontrollable joy, of a time when the circus stopping in YOUR town was a very big deal indeed.

One day while leaving work a train went by. I live in a town where probably 100 trains a day go by, so no big whoop. I happened to look in my rear view mirror as I was driving away from the tracks and noticed the train was somehow different. There was writing on the cars and all the cars were the same. It was the Ringling Brothers circus train! I pulled over and got out of my car to make sure. A circus train! I never saw one before; didn't think they even existed any longer. Almost as good as the time I saw the Christmas train on those very same tracks, at the end of another long, mind numbing work day! Haha yeah work can drain the life out of you to the point where a train going by seems exciting.