Her hair was screwed up in a tight bun at the back, and her eyes and mouth looked tight, too.

Uncle Ursie, though, is kind - a far more important attribute - and is quickly contrasted with his wife, 'a small neat woman, dressed in a dark blue cotton frock with red spots and a red belt.

He grinned widely at her and his little eyes almost disappeared. She didn't like the look of Uncle Ursie to-day. Not surprisingly, therefore, she is a neat and tidy child and this, initially, prejudices her against her uncle:įenella nodded. She could make anything! She knew how to use a sewing-machine, too, and was really a clever little girl' (p.12). Her most precious asset is her helpful character and her abilities are quickly stated: 'Fenella was a marvel with her needle. Fenella, 'a shy little girl,' has to face up to new challenges in life, which will mature her and make her a stronger personality. Here then is the first theme of the story. Whatever in the world would she do in a place where elephants and bears, monkeys and dogs roamed about all the time? She couldn't go there. To Fenella the prospect seems 'very frightening indeed':īut the circus! That was quite a new world - a frightening world to Fenella, who ran away if she saw even a gentle old sheep, and screamed if a dog jumped up at her. The settled sheltered life she has been leading with Aunt Janet comes to an abrupt end when her aunt marries and moves to Canada, leaving the little girl in the care of Uncle Ursie and Aunt Lou at Mr Carl Crack's Circus. In many ways the story is an essay in psychology.Īt its heart is one of the most lovable children Enid ever produced, the orphaned Fenella, 'ten years old, small for her age, with a little pointed face, green eyes and a shock of wavy red hair' (p.9). Unusually for Enid Blyton, the shadow of a death pervades the book and not till the end is the ghost finally exorcised. Those books have some psychology in them - indeed Circus Days Again, the third in the series, is almost a treatise in man-management at times - but Come to the Circus! (the exclamation mark in the title distinguishes it from the previous book of that name) is altogether more profound. When Come to the Circus! first appeared in Sunny Stories in February 1947, readers must have anticipated a further instalment of the successful Mr Galliano trilogy.

The Circus of Adventure by Enid Blyton