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The Circus Is Coming
Threatened with life in separate orphanages when their aunt dies, two children run away to search for their uncle who works for a circus and find that they can become a part of the hard work and colorful performances of the tenting season.
Paperback
Published January 1, 1965
About the author
Noel Streatfeild
176 books632 followersMary Noel Streatfeild, known as Noel Streatfeild, was an author best known and loved for her children's books, including Ballet Shoes and Circus Shoes. She also wrote romances under the pseudonym
Susan Scarlett
.
She was born on Christmas Eve, 1895, the daughter of William Champion Streatfeild and Janet Venn and the second of six children to be born to the couple. Sister Ruth was the oldest, after Noel came Barbara, William ('Bill'), Joyce (who died of TB prior to her second birthday) and Richenda. Ruth and Noel attended Hastings and St. Leonard's Ladies' College in 1910. As an adult, she began theater work, and spent approximately 10 years in the theater.
During the Great War, in 1915 Noel worked first as a volunteer in a soldier's hospital kitchen near Eastbourne Vicarage and later produced two plays with her sister Ruth. When things took a turn for the worse on the Front in 1916 she moved to London and obtained a job making munitions in Woolwich Arsenal. At the end of the war in January 1919, Noel enrolled at the Academy of Dramatic Art (later Royal Academy) in London.
In 1930, she began writing her first adult novel, The Whicharts, published in 1931. In June 1932, she was elected to membership of PEN. Early in 1936, Mabel Carey, children's editor of J. M. Dent and Sons, asks Noel to write a children's story about the theatre, which led to Noel completing Ballet Shoes in mid-1936. In 28 September 1936, when Ballet Shoes was published, it became an immediate best seller.
According to Angela Bull, Ballet Shoes was a reworked version of The Whicharts. Elder sister Ruth Gervis illustrated the book, which was published on the 28th September, 1936. At the time, the plot and general 'attitude' of the book was highly original, and destined to provide an outline for countless other ballet books down the years until this day. The first known book to be set at a stage school, the first ballet story to be set in London, the first to feature upper middle class society, the first to show the limits of amateurism and possibly the first to show children as self-reliant, able to survive without running to grownups when things went wrong.
In 1937, Noel traveled with Bertram Mills Circus to research The Circus is Coming (also known as Circus Shoes). She won the Carnegie gold medal in February 1939 for this book. In 1940, World War II began, and Noel began war-related work from 1940-1945. During this time, she wrote four adult novels, five children's books, nine romances, and innumerable articles and short stories. On May 10th, 1941, her flat was destroyed by a bomb. Shortly after WWII is over, in 1947, Noel traveled to America to research film studios for her book The Painted Garden. In 1949, she began delivering lectures on children's books. Between 1949 and 1953, her plays, The Bell Family radio serials played on the Children's Hour and were frequently voted top play of the year.
Early in 1960s, she decided to stop writing adult novels, but did write some autobiographical novels, such as A Vicarage Family in 1963. She also had written 12 romance novels under the pen name "Susan Scarlett." Her children's books number at least 58 titles. From July to December 1979, she suffered a series of small strokes and moved into a nursing home. In 1983, she received the honor Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE). On 11 September 1986, she passed away in a nursing home.
She was born on Christmas Eve, 1895, the daughter of William Champion Streatfeild and Janet Venn and the second of six children to be born to the couple. Sister Ruth was the oldest, after Noel came Barbara, William ('Bill'), Joyce (who died of TB prior to her second birthday) and Richenda. Ruth and Noel attended Hastings and St. Leonard's Ladies' College in 1910. As an adult, she began theater work, and spent approximately 10 years in the theater.
During the Great War, in 1915 Noel worked first as a volunteer in a soldier's hospital kitchen near Eastbourne Vicarage and later produced two plays with her sister Ruth. When things took a turn for the worse on the Front in 1916 she moved to London and obtained a job making munitions in Woolwich Arsenal. At the end of the war in January 1919, Noel enrolled at the Academy of Dramatic Art (later Royal Academy) in London.
In 1930, she began writing her first adult novel, The Whicharts, published in 1931. In June 1932, she was elected to membership of PEN. Early in 1936, Mabel Carey, children's editor of J. M. Dent and Sons, asks Noel to write a children's story about the theatre, which led to Noel completing Ballet Shoes in mid-1936. In 28 September 1936, when Ballet Shoes was published, it became an immediate best seller.
According to Angela Bull, Ballet Shoes was a reworked version of The Whicharts. Elder sister Ruth Gervis illustrated the book, which was published on the 28th September, 1936. At the time, the plot and general 'attitude' of the book was highly original, and destined to provide an outline for countless other ballet books down the years until this day. The first known book to be set at a stage school, the first ballet story to be set in London, the first to feature upper middle class society, the first to show the limits of amateurism and possibly the first to show children as self-reliant, able to survive without running to grownups when things went wrong.
In 1937, Noel traveled with Bertram Mills Circus to research The Circus is Coming (also known as Circus Shoes). She won the Carnegie gold medal in February 1939 for this book. In 1940, World War II began, and Noel began war-related work from 1940-1945. During this time, she wrote four adult novels, five children's books, nine romances, and innumerable articles and short stories. On May 10th, 1941, her flat was destroyed by a bomb. Shortly after WWII is over, in 1947, Noel traveled to America to research film studios for her book The Painted Garden. In 1949, she began delivering lectures on children's books. Between 1949 and 1953, her plays, The Bell Family radio serials played on the Children's Hour and were frequently voted top play of the year.
Early in 1960s, she decided to stop writing adult novels, but did write some autobiographical novels, such as A Vicarage Family in 1963. She also had written 12 romance novels under the pen name "Susan Scarlett." Her children's books number at least 58 titles. From July to December 1979, she suffered a series of small strokes and moved into a nursing home. In 1983, she received the honor Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE). On 11 September 1986, she passed away in a nursing home.
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
October 28, 2019
This book, like so many of the books written by Streatfeild, is a gem. I learned so much about circuses and circus life alongside a heartwarming and redemptive story about two siblings, Santa and Peter. I have always been fascinated by circuses and the idea of the Gypsy-like life of the circus. I wish they were still a “thing,” though I understand why they aren’t (animal rights and all). It was lovely to go back in time for a bit.
September 13, 2019
Peter and Santa are orphans who have been living with Aunt Rebecca, a retired lady's maid to a duchess. Aunt Rebecca has given them the impression that they are important children and should not mix with ordinary children; at the same time, she has not equipped them with any useful skills, including social skills! When Aunt Rebecca suddenly dies, Peter and Santa are told they will be put in an orphanage. Terrified, they run away to join their estranged Uncle Gus, who is a clown and trapeze artist in a circus. For the first time in their lives they make friends - the circus performers and their children. They find the world of the circus exciting and fun, but also challenging. They quickly learn that life in the circus requires constant hard working, and that everyone is expected to have a talent at something and an ambition for life. Can Peter and Santa fit into this world? Can they find talents which will enable them to join the circus, or will they have to go to the orphanage once the summer is over?
_ _ _
I had forgotten how absorbing Noel Streatfield's books are. If only "adult" fiction was as effortlessly enthralling as the best "children's" fiction!
The great charm of this book is that it brings the circus world of a bye-gone era to life before your eyes. You see the dancing horses, musical sea lions, awe-inspiring big cats, clever poodles, and the lives of the people who work with them (adults and children). Streatfield does not make her world too perfect - we see the tiredness, physical and mental effort, and clashes of personality, as well as the upsides of excitement, novelty, comraderie, and adventure. She gives the circus folk a firm, work hard play hard, and no-nonsense, approach to life, which perhaps was her own (I have noticed it in her other novels, to a lesser extent, especially Tennis Shoes).
To modern eyes, the adults sometimes seem too hard on Peter and Santa, who are, at the end of the day, just children, but I suppose this was characteristic of the age in which she was writing and the world she was describing. I like the fact that the adults are 3D characters, especially Uncle Gus. We see throughout the book his inner struggle between his instinctive dislike of softness and his sense that he is being unfair to the children (especially Peter). He struck me, reading the book again as an adult, as a pretty odd man and not particularly likeable, but he is an interesting character.
Peter and Santa are just right as the main characters of a children's novel, I think. You are not expected by the author to admire them as heroes (a common mistake), but you grow to like them, warts and all, sympathise with them, and to respect the way they grow in character over the course of the story.
The one downside of the book, for me, is that the actual nuts and bolts - as it were - of Streatfield's writing are pretty average (by which I mean that her style, grammar, syntax, vocabulary, etc. are fine, but not better than fine). BUT, I quickly got swept up into the story and completely stopped noticing this. What she has going for her is that she is a fantastic storyteller. I was totally gripped and couldn't put the book down (despite reading this with stomach flu!). I was also surprised to find myself a bit moved by the end of the story, although it's certainly not supposed to be a tear jerker.
I don't think this story would be for everyone. Above all, the difference between mentalities then and now (especially the ideas about gender roles) would be off-putting for some readers, I imagine. But, I really like getting into the minds and world of people of bye-gone eras, so I enjoyed this all the more for the fact that it was written eighty years ago.
_ _ _
I had forgotten how absorbing Noel Streatfield's books are. If only "adult" fiction was as effortlessly enthralling as the best "children's" fiction!
The great charm of this book is that it brings the circus world of a bye-gone era to life before your eyes. You see the dancing horses, musical sea lions, awe-inspiring big cats, clever poodles, and the lives of the people who work with them (adults and children). Streatfield does not make her world too perfect - we see the tiredness, physical and mental effort, and clashes of personality, as well as the upsides of excitement, novelty, comraderie, and adventure. She gives the circus folk a firm, work hard play hard, and no-nonsense, approach to life, which perhaps was her own (I have noticed it in her other novels, to a lesser extent, especially Tennis Shoes).
To modern eyes, the adults sometimes seem too hard on Peter and Santa, who are, at the end of the day, just children, but I suppose this was characteristic of the age in which she was writing and the world she was describing. I like the fact that the adults are 3D characters, especially Uncle Gus. We see throughout the book his inner struggle between his instinctive dislike of softness and his sense that he is being unfair to the children (especially Peter). He struck me, reading the book again as an adult, as a pretty odd man and not particularly likeable, but he is an interesting character.
Peter and Santa are just right as the main characters of a children's novel, I think. You are not expected by the author to admire them as heroes (a common mistake), but you grow to like them, warts and all, sympathise with them, and to respect the way they grow in character over the course of the story.
The one downside of the book, for me, is that the actual nuts and bolts - as it were - of Streatfield's writing are pretty average (by which I mean that her style, grammar, syntax, vocabulary, etc. are fine, but not better than fine). BUT, I quickly got swept up into the story and completely stopped noticing this. What she has going for her is that she is a fantastic storyteller. I was totally gripped and couldn't put the book down (despite reading this with stomach flu!). I was also surprised to find myself a bit moved by the end of the story, although it's certainly not supposed to be a tear jerker.
I don't think this story would be for everyone. Above all, the difference between mentalities then and now (especially the ideas about gender roles) would be off-putting for some readers, I imagine. But, I really like getting into the minds and world of people of bye-gone eras, so I enjoyed this all the more for the fact that it was written eighty years ago.
July 25, 2022
Another re-read as part of something I'm working on, and once again I was very surprised at how very, very good this was. What I found most interesting was the way she plays with the trope of "rags to riches" - this is almost but not quite riches to rags, but her point was that the two children who are the main protagonists have to learn to be "normal." They've been brought up by a super-snobby aunt, who makes them believe that they're better than everyone else. When the aunt dies, they go to find an uncle they hardly knew existed and discover that he works in a circus. He declares the aunt was a "fool," and the children discover how helpless and ignorant they are, but learn self-sufficiency through their own hard work and efforts. Streatfeild conveys the life of the circus vividly; Peter and Santa are both interesting characters. Peter, especially, is difficult to like as he has a temper and is argumentative, but ultimately learns to control himself and to think before speaking. Santa is earlier more sympathetic but also has to learn to make decisions for herself and to take responsibility for her own life.
July 22, 2013
Hooray, another new Noel Streatfeild for me! This one I absolutely loved. Such a charming, quick read. Peter isn't always likeable but he's at least interesting, and often mockable. I'm still wondering what Santa could possibly be short for too! The adventure getting to the circus was so much fun to read about, as was seeing the children fitting in - or otherwise. ;)
April 29, 2020
Leuk boek waarbij je veel kennis opdoet over het circus.
December 6, 2024
Lovely nostalgic read for me. A wonderful set of characters.
January 3, 2016
Streatfeild's books are often good to inspire kids to be the best that they can be in their chosen field of interest, and to teach them not to settle for mediocrity - if something is worth doing, it is worth doing well. It's probably worth 4.5 stars. I found it thoroughly satisfying to read. The ending was possibly just a bit too abrupt. And Streatfeild made a mistake too. She seemed to imply that there was a pebble beach at Margate, where it is actually a sandy beach. But apart from that defect, it's an enjoyable read.
Streatfeild's books are always clean and innocent (as children's books of that era always were) and suitable for being read in Christian homes. The only warning I might offer is that I believe that if children are to read Streatfeild, they ought to be encouraged to read several of her books, and not just one, the reason being that reading just one book might put the idea into a child's head that they would like to become a ballet dancer, or an ice-skater, or horse-rider, or whatever - not necessarily ambitions a Christian parent would desire their child to have. Reading a succession of books promoting different activities might help to stop the child becoming fixated with one idea, and help to convey to them the overall message of the importance of working hard at whatever they set their mind to - that they can aspire to be like all these characters without having to follow them in exactly the same careers.
Streatfeild's books are always clean and innocent (as children's books of that era always were) and suitable for being read in Christian homes. The only warning I might offer is that I believe that if children are to read Streatfeild, they ought to be encouraged to read several of her books, and not just one, the reason being that reading just one book might put the idea into a child's head that they would like to become a ballet dancer, or an ice-skater, or horse-rider, or whatever - not necessarily ambitions a Christian parent would desire their child to have. Reading a succession of books promoting different activities might help to stop the child becoming fixated with one idea, and help to convey to them the overall message of the importance of working hard at whatever they set their mind to - that they can aspire to be like all these characters without having to follow them in exactly the same careers.
October 26, 2018
'The Circus is Coming' (also known as 'Circus Shoes') is the story of Peter and Santa, an orphaned brother and sister who live with their rather strict and snobbish aunt. It's set, I suppose, in the 1930s. When the aunt dies, it looks as though the children may have to be sent to orphanages. So they decide to go and find their uncle Gus, the black sheep of the family. What they hadn't realised is that he's an artiste in a circus.
The book is about Peter and Santa learning to put aside some of their snooty ideas, and become friendly with the circus folk. Some of it seems very old-fashioned, but on the whole it's an enjoyable read. As with so many of Streatfeild's novels, the ending is satisfying, but abrupt.
Three and a half stars would be fairer.
The book is about Peter and Santa learning to put aside some of their snooty ideas, and become friendly with the circus folk. Some of it seems very old-fashioned, but on the whole it's an enjoyable read. As with so many of Streatfeild's novels, the ending is satisfying, but abrupt.
Three and a half stars would be fairer.
December 11, 2020
A bit by the numbers there are two things I want to note:
--first that throughout, Streatfeild is waging a quiet but determined campaign against the use of wild animals, and for a recognition of 'personhood' of all animals.
--the book was published in 1938, and at the end of it all the families, head off to European countries, including the German family who head to Germany.
You can find details about what happened to the circuses in Germany and France during the war, here; http://www.divergingfates.eu/
--first that throughout, Streatfeild is waging a quiet but determined campaign against the use of wild animals, and for a recognition of 'personhood' of all animals.
--the book was published in 1938, and at the end of it all the families, head off to European countries, including the German family who head to Germany.
You can find details about what happened to the circuses in Germany and France during the war, here; http://www.divergingfates.eu/
July 11, 2022
I really like this book. I think one of the best bits about it is that Peter and Santa don't take to circus life at first, they've been brought up to think they're better than everyone else. But they're good kids underneath it all, and what they learn is very valuable. By the end, they belong.
(July 2022 - I still enjoy the circus setting, but on this reread didn't did that characters as compelling. Really there's not many meaningful relationships to enjoy. But it is a fun light read.)
(July 2022 - I still enjoy the circus setting, but on this reread didn't did that characters as compelling. Really there's not many meaningful relationships to enjoy. But it is a fun light read.)
October 4, 2025
Pure Noel Streatfield with orphaned children making their way in a not so friendly world. Santa and her brother Peter runaway from a plan of separating them in different orphanages and set out to find their uncle who works for a circus. Successfully finding him they try to fit in to circus life. Apparently this was also called Circus Shoes but as I don’t remember ever reading it when I saw the local library had it I had to check it out. A nostalgic read for 8 year old me for sure.
May 25, 2021
I never read this as a child so I'm delighted to have added it to my collection. It's superbly atmospheric and there's a great cast of characters. Santa and Peter, the central characters, are among NS's most interesting sibling creations, managing to be both ordinary and out of the ordinary at the same time. Good story, wish there was more.
September 29, 2024
When recovering after a hospital stay with could be easier or more reassuring than a revisit to the books of childhood! I loved this as a child.. and still do! (Who thought that renaming this Circus Shoes was a good idea???)
March 23, 2026
not my favorite Streatfeild, because the two kids are so awfully warped by their upbring and struggle because of this. (and also "circus" is not my favorite book setting). Not one I reread very often.
March 28, 2009
This may actually be one of my least favorite Streatfeilds. The children are ok, but the book is short so no one is particularly well drawn in this story.
November 24, 2019
An enjoyable easy read.
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews