Circus Carnivore

This curious tour through the mind of a rebellious and boisterous girl contains such an explosion of intriguing images and nonsense verse that some young readers may find it difficult to read or perhaps just plain overwhelming. Intrepid readers with a penchant for macabre details, however, will likely be entranced by the book's sheer inventiveness. Resembling a cross between Christina Ricci's portrayal of Wednesday Addams and Tim Burton's Corpse Bride, young Kate invites readers to take a look inside her ""noise-some"" mind. She introduces them to her ""noise-a-matron"" machine and all the other weird creatures she imagines living inside her head. Redlich's (The Great Montefiasco) pleasingly cluttered pages brim with a variety of fonts and visual flotsam and jetsam. The title page alone includes a jumble of rockets and bombs, clacking false teeth, a monkey wearing a red fez, musical instruments (an alligator bursts from the horn of a Victrola), clocks (a hand pops from a cuckoo clock and shoots a gun with a flag for the dedication), and ribbons of words and letters that obscure the title itself. Kate's parents (the ""Dullundrears... who listen with their heary-ears!"") eventually intervene, but not before text and art swamp readers with quirky images and overblown language (""O sad be the wince,/ O shriven the pride""). Not to be deterred, Kate subversively creates a rowdy Circus Carnivore that promises she will be even more ""cranky and pernickety"" than before. Ages 6-10.