Baby Clown

An award-winning author and a Caldecott Medalist introduce an adorable new circus star — who won’t stop wailing! When Frieda and Boffo Clown have a baby, everyone in the circus is over the moon. But there is just one problem: Baby Clown won’t stop crying! Frieda and Boffo try everything: putting on their silliest faces, driving him around in their tiny car. They even try taking off his red nose and big shoes. But that just makes Baby Clown cry more. Can Frieda and Boffo turn his little clown frown upside down in time for the sold-out show? Kara LaReau deftly juggles wit and warmth in this hilarious nod to parental persistence, while Matthew Cordell’s big-top-bright illustrations bring Baby Clown and his circus family to humorously frazzled life. Older siblings, in particular, will step right up to this applause-worthy picture book, joining Baby Clown in many a heartfelt “WAAAAH!”

Whimsical and touching images tell the story of an unexpected friendship and the revelations it inspires in this moving, wordless picture book from two-time Caldecott Honor medalist Marla Frazee. A baby clown is separated from his family when he accidentally bounces off their circus train and lands in a lonely farmer’s vast, empty field. The farmer reluctantly rescues the little clown, and over the course of one day together, the two of them make some surprising discoveries about themselves—and about life! Sweet, funny, and moving, this wordless picture book from a master of the form and the creator of The Boss Baby speaks volumes and will delight story lovers of all ages.

Baby the clown demonstates the stupendous feats in his act, from juggling eggs to riding a unicycle to sawing a worm in half

Step right up for the Greatest Book on Earth! For more than 70 years, Clowns International—the oldest established clowning organization—has been painting the faces of its members on eggs. Each one is a record of a clown's unique identity, preserving the unwritten rule that no clown should copy another's look. This mesmerizing volume collects more than 150 of these portraits, from 1946 to the modern day, accompanied by short personal histories of many of the clowns. Here are Tricky Nicky, Taffy, Bobo, Sammy Sunshine, the legendary Emmett Kelly, and Jolly Jack, clowning since 1977 and still performing today with a penguin puppet named Biscuit. A treasure just like the eggs it enshrines, The Clown Egg Register is an extraordinary archive of images and lives of the men and women behind the make-up.

At once funny and touching, this book tells the story of Olivia, a clown child, whose dreams are filled with simple things such as bathtubs and homes that don't bump all over the prairie. Then Olivia gets a glimpse of life outside the circus. What would it mean to give up the circus life? Full color.

Leonardo can't stop being the class clown despite his teacher's protestations.

Ollie Jolly's school assignment is to describe what he wants to be when he grows up, but he has no idea what to write about until he helps a traveling rodeo clown.

Poetry. This is a double collection of playful and surprisingly moving poems rooted in a theme of circus life. THE BOOK OF CLOWN BABY explores the fantasy existence of Gerry LaFemina's character, Clown Baby. Occupied by visions of trick horses, parades and high-wire acts, Clown Baby relates the fantastic to the common reality where he finds himself. Similarly, in the Figures, LaFemina, with his profound gift for image, captures the wonder of the big top, as imagined and recreated in children's play. Gerry LaFemina's poetry collection THE PARAKEETS OF BROOKLYN received the 2003 Bordighera Prize in Poetry and was published in a bi-lingual edition of English and Italian. Among his honors are prizes from the Academy of American Poets and fellowships from the Irving Gilmore Emerging Artist Foundation and the Michigan Council for Arts and Cultural Affairs. The former editor of the literary journal Controlled Burn, LaFemina now co-edits with poet Dennis Hinrichsen Review Revue, a journal of reviews, interviews and prosody essays. Currently he directs the Frostburg Center for Creative Writing at Frostburg State University where he is an Assistant Professor of English.

The Victorian Clown is a micro-history of mid-Victorian comedy, spun out of the life and work of two professional clowns. Their previously unpublished manuscripts - James Frowde's account of his young life with the famous Henglers' circus in the 1850s and Thomas Lawrence's 1871 gag book - offer unique, unmediated access to the grass roots of popular entertainment. Through them this book explores the role of the circus clown at the height of equestrian entertainment in Britain, when the comic managed audience attention for the riders and acrobats, parodying their skills in his own tumbling and contortionism, and also offered a running commentary on the times through his own 'wheezes' - stand-up comedy sets. Plays in the ring connect the circus to the stage, and both these men were also comic singers, giving a sharp insight into popular music just as it was being transformed by the new institution of music hall.

Shalimar the Clown is a masterpiece from one of our greatest writers, a dazzling novel that brings together the fiercest passions of the heart and the gravest conflicts of our time into an astonishingly powerful, all-encompassing story. Max Ophuls’ memorable life ends violently in Los Angeles in 1993 when he is murdered by his Muslim driver Noman Sher Noman, also known as Shalimar the Clown. At first the crime seems to be politically motivated—Ophuls was previously ambassador to India, and later US counterterrorism chief—but it is much more. Ophuls is a giant, an architect of the modern world: a Resistance hero and best-selling author, brilliant economist and clandestine US intelligence official. But it is as Ambassador to India that the seeds of his demise are planted, thanks to another of his great roles—irresistible lover. Visiting the Kashmiri village of Pachigam, Ophuls lures an impossibly beautiful dancer, the ambitious (and willing) Boonyi Kaul, away from her husband, and installs her as his mistress in Delhi. But their affair cannot be kept secret, and when Boonyi returns home, disgraced and obese, it seems that all she has waiting for her is the inevitable revenge of her husband: Noman Sher Noman, Shalimar the Clown. He was an acrobat and tightrope walker in their village’s traditional theatrical troupe; but soon Shalimar is trained as a militant in Kashmir’s increasingly brutal insurrection, and eventually becomes a terrorist with a global remit and a deeply personal mission of vengeance. In this stunningly rich book everything is connected, and everyone is a part of everyone else. A powerful love story, intensely political and historically informed, Shalimar the Clown is also profoundly human, an involving story of people’s lives, desires and crises, as well as—in typical Rushdie fashion—a magical tale where the dead speak and the future can be foreseen.