Feeding the Flying Fanellis: And Other Poems from a Circus Chef

Gr 2–4—Employing cheerful rhymes of varied pattern, the book's narrator, a chef and poet, describes the culinary tastes of the Flying Fanellis and other colorful circus entertainers. The ringmaster has no time to sit down for meals. "Inside of his hat is a picnic I made—/Salami and mustard, a mini baguette." The homesick strongman from Ukraine gets "vushka and some tea/From his babushka's recipe." Readers are also introduced to the juggler, a dog named Little Blue, the contortionist twins, and more circus stars. Like the poems, the mixed-media illustrations are comic and whimsical. Kawa's collage and drawn figures are set against nicely washed backgrounds in many hues. Often long and slender of limb and round in body, the cartoonlike performers resemble puppets or other toy figures. The clown and the human cannonball are presented as circular bodies framing heads, and the ravenous lion is a bit surreal, appearing as a jacketed human with a moustache and goatee, his pointed ears poking through a wig. Tiny details scattered across each scene add humor but are so small that they might be easily missed. There's just a bit of a story with Hugo, the sugar-addicted human cannonball, becoming a pastry chef in the end, and there's a final summer feast gathering of all the characters at a long table, circus tents behind them.