Wordless Books

Sidewalk Circus

Paul Fleischman and Kevin Hawkes


The power of the imagination is celebrated in this book of full-bleed acrylic images.

Inspired by a sign for ‘Garibaldi Circus’, a girl sitting at a bus stop imagines the activities in the street before her as circus acts. So a workman balancing on a beam becomes a tightrope walker, a delivery person with a heavy load turns into a strongman and a pancake flipper is transformed into a juggler.

Her bus arrives, she leaves and a boy takes her seat. But it seems that he, too, can see the magic in the everyday.