Circus Quest Bk1: The Playbill by Maureen Crisp, illus. Irina Burtseva.

Circus Quest Bk1: The Playbill by Maureen Crisp, illus. Irina Burtseva. Pub. Marmac Media, 2018.

This is the first of 10 books from the Circus Quest series for junior and newly confident readers. Each novel has a clue to solve which leads to the next one.

The Circus Charles will finish if they don’t complete a challenge and if they do complete the challenge they will join the top circus companies at the Circonvention.

Budding trapeze artist Skye and her brother Kestrel who is a clown are responsible for solving a series of clues that will give the circus a chance of survival. On top of that their mother is missing, their father is behaving mysteriously, and a series of accidents

suggests there is a traitor in their midst.

Firstly they have to solve the problem of where the clues are. See if they do.

Easy to read with big font, short chapters and only about 80 pages per book. A great way to get  youngsters into reading.

 

Circus Quest Bk2: Magician’s Moustache.

The first venue of the Circus Charles tour is at the island town of Papenton,  which is famous for it’s hundreds of clocks.

Skye and Kestrel after finding the key to the clues of the challenge to save the circus, deduce that the next clue is in a clock. But which one?

Already the traitor has sabotaged a rope to the big top and other accidents are about to happen. Who is masterminding these acts? There are some shifty characters involved.

Skye deduces the rhyme Hickory Dickory Dock is a clue and if you know the rhyme you the reader are half way there. Skye shows her trapeze skills to find the next clue which is a written code. I solved it but can you?

Another good thing about the series is that the characters are drawn at the front by illustrator Irina Burtseva who captures the characters, the circus and the action very well in black and white pen drawings.

A series to keep an eye on.