Robin has spent his life traveling around with his Uncle Ted, a trapeze artist. After Robin is injured, Uncle Ted leaves him with his friend Mrs. Fatima, a retired snake charmer, where other retired circus performers gather to visit. When Robin learns that Mrs. Fatima is in financial trouble, it is up to Robin to save the day.
Edward Fenton is the author of many books for young readers, including The Phantom of Walkway Hill, which won the Edgar Award for the best juvenile mystery of its year. His three translations of the Greek write Alki Zei have all received the Mildred L. Batchelder Award for outstanding books translated from a foreign language. In addition, his poems and stories have appeared in several magazines, among them The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, Cricket, and The Horn Book.
Mr. Fenton was born in New York City, but is "Greek by adoption." he and his wife, Sophia Havarti, a well-known educator and child psychologist, live in Athens and in Galixidi, an old sea captain's village on the coast near Delphi.
4/14/17 This morning, as part of a Spring Break road trip with the family, we stopped at a wonderful used bookstore in Pennsylvania, Baldwin's Book Barn (http://www.bookbarn.com/) which I always stop by any time I'm remotely in the area. Somehow, this time around I was convinced that I would find one of the obscure books on the list which it feels like I spent most of March compiling (https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/1...), and sure enough I found this one, in a nice jacket, no less. Will I like it as much as Helen and Jane apparently did? I'm a little doubtful, because circus stories aren't my particular cup of tea (The Circus is Coming in one of the few Noel Streatfeild's I haven't read, for example). But I'm happy to have the chance to give it a shot. And impressed at my own pyschic book foretelling.
4/18/17 Robin is a young boy who has spent his life traveling around with his trapeze artist Uncle Ted. He doesn't remember his parents who died in a trapeze accident when he was a baby. After an injury, Robin's uncle decides the performing life is too chancy for Robin, and leaves him in the care of a retired circus friend, the snake charmer Mrs. Fatima in Brooklyn, while he travels around the country in a show. Robin wants nothing more than to be a circus performer. Fortunately for him, Mrs. Fatima's home is a gathering place of retired performers who keep his dream alive. Two trained seals are abandoned on Mrs. Fatima's doorstep the night he arrives. Her baker friend happens to have a trapeze apparatus set up in the back room of his bakery and happily coaches Robin for free every morning. Soon it transpires that the kindly Mrs. Fatima is in financial difficulties. Will Robin be able to save the day? It's all wildly implausible in a way that I wouldn't have minded around age 8, or so, but which I have little patience for now. A mildly pleasant read which I won't be picking up again.