Secrets of the Cirque Medrano - Hardcover

Elaine Scott is the author of many award-winning nonfiction children's books, including Poles Apart: Why Penguins and Polar Bears Will Never Be Neighbors (Viking) and Close Encounters: Exploring the Universe with the Hubble Space Telescope (Hyperion). Elaine lives in Houston, Texas with her husband, Parker, and three cats named Laverne, Shirley, and Troy.

Great art often seems to have a story behind it, and Scott has imagined a suspenseful one about the circus acrobats featured in Picasso’s Family of Saltambiques. After her mother’s death, 14-year-old Brigitte is taken in by her bourgeois aunt Dominique, who runs a Montmartre café frequented by Picasso, his friends, and a mysterious Russian diplomat. Discontented with her new life, and thrilled by the attentions of a young acrobat, impulsive Brigitte longs to join the circus. She also dreams of solving the mystery behind the disappearance of one of the performers. Many readers will identify with hardworking but unhappy Brigitte, who successfully pursues her circus dream but narrowly escapes from the predicaments her spying creates. An author’s note explains a little more about art and intrigue in Paris at the beginning of the twentieth century. An agreeable introduction to an unusual political, artistic, and social world. Grades 5-8. --Kathleen Isaacs