YOU SEE A CIRCUS. I SEE...

In this intriguingly original and elegantly rendered story, a boy acrobat in a traveling circus introduces two young visitors to the real people behind the glamorous personae. "You see trapeze artists," he tells the children, as they gaze in wonder at two tiny figures twirling high above them. "Two acrobats in snazzy tights/ Soar overhead while chased by lights." Turning the page, readers learn that when the boy looks at the pair, "I see my parents/ .../ when we're off to have some fun,/ They still make sure my homework's done." In one of her many fluid, delicately washed watercolors, McGrory (Mouton's Impossible Dream ) shows the boy and his mother taking a break from aerial work and huddling over an assignment; although the pair faces away from the audience, their demeanor will seem instantly familiar—they could as easily be sitting at a kitchen table instead of casually balanced on a trapeze. As Downs (Pig Giggles and Rabbit Rhymes ) points out similar examples—the raucous clown is a bookworm, the hulking strongman doubles as the narrator's playful, beloved uncle—his rhymes don't always fly through the air with the greatest of ease. But no matter: McGrory's illustrations eloquently express both the exoticism of life "beneath a three-ringed dome," and the cozy, if offbeat, domesticity of the backstage world. Ages 2-7. (Feb.)