High Wire

by Melanie Jackson

Zack Freedman has complete control and feels a sense of calm on the high wire.

If only Zack could say the same about the rest of his life. His fellow youth circus performer and roommate, Cubby, hates him, and his aunt dumps a yappy, excitable dog on him. When a necklace is stolen during a circus performance and the victim of the theft threatens to shut down the circus, Zack is desperate to solve the mystery so he can keep his place on the wire.

This short novel is a high-interest, low-reading level book for middle-grade readers who are building reading skills, want a quick read or say they don’t like to read!

Genres: Young Adult

125 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 1, 2012

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.

Melanie Jackson wrote her first mystery story at age seven and hasn't stopped since. She isn't sure why she likes mysteries so much, except that maybe it's part of being curious about life and its possibilities. A former journalist, Melanie volunteers as a creative writing mentor for the Vancouver School Board. Born in Scotland, raised in Toronto, Melanie lives in East Vancouver, in the same Commercial Drive area as her singing sleuth Dinah, with her husband, daughter and cowardly cat.

Series:
* Dinah Galloway
* Ailie Mooney

Reviews

[Megan · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very interesting story. I liked that the story took place at a circus. It was fun learning a little bit of circus performers' history. I wasn't sure at first if I was going to like Zack, but he quickly became endearing with his behavior towards his fellow performers, boss, and (at the beginning) an unwanted responsibility. The mystery side to the book was good and the ending was quite surprising. All in all, this was a good read and if you like these types of books you should definitely give this a read.

[Alina · Rating 2 out of 5]

High Wire is a general fiction, young adult novel by Melanie Jackson. A man, Zack Freedman, works in a circus, he has an enemy who tries to ruin his job in the circus as a tightrope walker.

The Novel begins with Zack starting to walk across a tight rope though, as the book goes on, it’s not as easy for Zack to keep his job. His mother had gotten a dog recently and she wasn’t able to take care of it herself. Zack’s mother was on a trip so she couldn’t help with the dog, he had to take care of the dog known as Pooch. Pooch causes major problems for Zack. His boss does not take a liking towards Pooch himself. One day when Zachary Freedman was on the high wire, a shriek was heard from below him. He wanted to look down and see what had happened, but he ignored it and kept going, although after the act was over an even bigger problem had come. A woman was robbed and threatened to shut down the circus. The next morning when they had been reading the news from the Vancouver Sun, they saw that their circus was in the paper. It wasn’t a great thing because the story was about the woman who had been robbed and hurt while the robbery was happening in the middle of the circus show.

Zachary didn’t want the circus to shut down; he didn’t want to lose his job either. After the incident the police had shown up and took a look around the circus itself to see if they could find any clues while being there. Zack had questioned a fellow worker and asked why the police were searching in the circus. His friend Joel had explained to him the guards had seen the thief running towards the performers and crew only area. The thief could be one of the circus workers.

I enjoyed High Wire. It was a quickly-paced novel. I think that people who enjoy books with mysteries in them would definitely love to read this young adult book. Although High Wire was a good work in general, there were a couple things I personally didn’t like in the book. I thought that there were multiple problems at once and since it was such a short book everything happened extremely quickly. Apart from that it was a good story.

High Wire is a very short book so if you need something to write about, I would definitely recommend this book because it’s a simple story with a big plot. The novel was published in 1990 and it currently still does not have a movie to go along with it.

[Joyce · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hi-Lo YA fiction--kept my interest, and solution to mystery wasn't predictable. However, somewhat uneven in character development, and jumpy as to plot. It seems the author has tried pretty hard to integrate the 'zen' idea into the plot, but it seemed pasted on to me.

[Anne · Rating 3 out of 5]

Zack is a circus performer whose skill is the high wire. When the theft of a diamond necklace threatens to shut down the circus, Zack must solve the mystery or risk losing the job he loves.