Irene grew up traveling around Germany with her family’s circus, surrounded by her loved ones and thrilling the crowds with her performance on the high wire...until one day, the audience boos. The Lorch family is Jewish, and the increasing power of Adolf Hitler’s Nazis has put them all in grave danger. When the circus is forced to shut down and Irene’s father is taken away, Irene and her mother must go into hiding with another circus. Every day is a frightening new kind of balancing act, caught between the desire to perform and the need to hide—even in plain sight.

“On the High Wire is fascinating to read. You will learn about the man, his work, his passion, his tenacity and lucidity” (Marcel Marceau) In this poetic handbook, written when he was just twenty-three, the world-famous high-wire artist Philippe Petit offers a window into the world of his craft. Petit masterfully explains how preparation and self-control contributed to such feats as walking between the towers of Notre Dame and the World Trade Center. Addressing such topics as the rigging of the wire, the walker’s first steps, his salute and exercises, and the work of other renowned high-wire artists, Petit offers us a book about the ecstasy of conquering our fears and reaching for the stars.

One day, a mysterious stranger arrives at a boardinghouse of the widow Gateau- a sad-faced stranger, who keeps to himself. When the widow's daughter, Mirette, discovers him crossing the courtyard on air, she begs him to teach her how he does it. But Mirette doesn't know that the stranger was once the Great Bellini- master wire-walker. Or that Bellini has been stopped by a terrible fear. And it is she who must teach him courage once again. Emily Arnold McCully's sweeping watercolor paintings carry the reader over the rooftops of nineteenth-century Paris and into an elegant, beautiful world of acrobats, jugglers, mimes, actors, and one gallant, resourceful little girl.

In 1936--A party at the Ringling mansion Ca d’Zan in Sarasota, Florida, leads to a robbery--and possibly death. A successful historical mystery writer, Chloe Whitfield comes to Ca’ d’Zan to research her next novel. Chloe’s fascination with the circus is rooted in family stories of her great-grandmother Lucinda Conroy, who reportedly was a trapeze artist of some renown. She’s heard hints of scandal—and perhaps larceny, but no details. Chloe’s grandmother—rumored to be Lucinda’s only offspring—was raised in an orphanage and never knew her mother. Intrigued as she is, Chloe has no intent of writing about Lucinda until she sees a poster featuring Lucinda as the star performer for a 70th birthday gala for John Ringling in May of 1936. From there the trail goes cold. Who was Lucinda and what happened to her?

Mirette and the Great Bellini sweep all of Europe with their act on the high wire, but when Bellini is arrested after a performance in St. Petersburg, Mirette is challenged to master the Death Walk to save him from prison. The sequel to the Caldecott Medal-winning Mirette on the High Wire.

Gabi is a young Jewish girl living in Czechoslovakia during the time of the Holocaust. Gradually life is getting harder and harder. Jews are bullied at school, they can't visit each other at a certain time, they have to walk everywhere, they are not allowed to go to non-Jewish stores, and finally Gabi's best friend deserts her because she is Jewish. One day, the Nazis start visiting all the houses looking for Jewish children. In a tremendous act of courage, Gabi's mother protects Gabi from the soldiers by hiding her in their dining-room dresser. This is the story of author Kathy Kacer's own mother, who was the real-life Gabi. The only thing retrieved from their family's home after the war was the dresser that saved Gabi's life. It now sits in author Kathy Kacer's home in Toronto.

Based on real events and real characters! It is the middle of World War II, and Gabi and her mother have been lucky so far, eluding the grasp of Nazi soldiers who are sending Jewish people away to unknown fates. But she, her mother and her young cousin, Max, realize that they will never be safe in their town. With the help of a trusted friend, a kind-hearted priest and a poor yet brave farming family, they go into hiding in a tiny mountain village. It takes great willpower and patience to endure months of fear in their cramped hiding space at the back of a barn. But one night, Gabi and Max can't stand the confinement any longer, and they sneak out for the first of many secret nighttime walks. Deep in the forest, the children make a discovery that turns out to be very useful to the anti-Nazi partisan soldiers camped out nearby. Through their new roles as scouts for the partisans, Gabi and Max find strength and courage, and a renewed sense of hope in dark times.