This is a book about a noble attempt to change the world through the medi­um of ​“social cir­cus” where chil­dren of vary­ing back­grounds can learn to work togeth­er, trust each oth­er and, in the process, prove that dif­fer­ences don’t mat­ter near­ly much as one might think. One cir­cus is based in Saint Louis and is com­posed of chil­dren from homes fac­ing dis­ad­van­tages of vary­ing kinds who have learned to per­form and gain con­fi­dence and who now face the future armed with hope and impres­sive­ly honed skills. A sim­i­lar cir­cus is locat­ed in Israel’s Galilee region. There, young per­form­ers seek to address a dif­fer­ent sort of social prob­lem. This cir­cus inte­grates Jew­ish Israeli and Mus­lim Arab per­form­ers who get to know one anoth­er in ways which would be near­ly impos­si­ble in oth­er set­tings in that geo­graph­ic area and in that polit­i­cal cli­mate. Improb­a­bly but suc­cess­ful­ly the two cir­cus­es had an oppor­tu­ni­ty to meet and per­form together.

This book is about build­ing bridges and mak­ing con­nec­tions and about hope for the future of human­i­ty. It’s about peo­ple meet­ing oth­ers they thought they would nev­er get to know and then learn­ing that these oth­ers have more in com­mon with them than they could have ever imag­ined. Acro­bats who toss one anoth­er sky high need to trust one anoth­er absolute­ly. They need to know they will caught by their team­mates and they need to know this in a con­fi­dent, unwa­ver­ing, ful­ly trust­ing, absolute way. If these groups can build trust on this lev­el, maybe there is some hope for the trou­bled regions of the world, after all. It’s an uncer­tain but inspir­ing thought.

Excit­ing col­or pho­tographs of the cir­cus per­form­ers and per­for­mances enhance this beau­ti­ful­ly pro­duced and unusu­al book. Rec­om­mend­ed for ages 10- 14.