Spectacle, Vol. 1

Gr 9 Up—Bold lines surrounding panels with equally bright colors are appropriate foils for an audacious story about a travelling circus. Anna and her twin sister, Kat, were taken in as members of the Samson Brothers Circus. Kat can throw knives with—usually—accurate precision. Lacking her sister's keen hand-eye coordination, Anna has compensated by "telling fortunes." Intellectual and skeptical Anna initially balks at working as a psychic, so she creates a conjecture engine that calculates probabilities and helps her reach scientifically based conclusions. Her life takes a tragic turn when she finds Kat murdered in their shared train car. Kat begins to inhabit Anna's mind and body as both of them attempt to find Kat's killer. Worse still, Anna discovers that she can see other ghosts, including the victims of a corrupt sheriff in one of the show's whistle-stop towns. Gedris makes a conscious effort to incorporate ethnically and religiously diverse characters and takes full advantage of the circus context to explore otherness with the circus "freaks." The abrupt cliff-hanger ending will leave readers anxiously awaiting the second installment.