{"product_id":"we-are-all-his-creatures-tales-of-p-t-barnum-the-greatest-showman-isbn-9780763659813","title":"We Are All His Creatures: Tales of P. T. Barnum, the Greatest Showman","description":"\u003cb\u003eIn a series of interwoven fictionalized stories, Deborah Noyes gives voice to the marginalized women in P. T. Barnum’s family — and the talented entertainers he built his entertainment empire on.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMuch has been written about P. T. Barnum — legendary showman, entrepreneur, marketing genius, and one of the most famous nineteenth-century personalities. For those who lived in Barnum’s shadow, however, life was complex. P. T. Barnum’s two families — his family at home, including his two wives and his daughters, and his family at work, including Little People, a giantess, an opera singer, and many sideshow entertainers — suffered greatly from his cruelty and exploitation. Yet, at the same time, some of his performers, such as General Tom Thumb (Charles Stratton), became wealthy celebrities who were admired and feted by presidents and royalty. In this collection of interlinked stories illustrated with archival photographs, Deborah Noyes digs deep into what is known about the people in Barnum’s orbit and imagines their personal lives, putting front and center the complicated joy and pain of what it meant to be one of Barnum’s “creatures.”In these eleven cumulative fictional short stories...Noyes focuses instead on those within the gravitational pull of his American Museum, and how the force that was Barnum affected the trajectory of their lives...Noyes indulges in her own touch of flim-flammery.\u003cbr\u003e—Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books (starred review)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe author uses historical facts combined with her own imagination to show readers that while Barnum did make some of his exhibits rich and famous, deep down he was a shyster who preyed on a gullible population in the name of \"entertainment.\"...with real photos and a historical facts included, this book may make a nice addition to larger public library collections.\u003cbr\u003e—School Library Connection\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eProceeding chronologically from 1842 to Barnum’s death in 1891, this collection of 11 intertwined stories from Noyes (\u003ci\u003eTooth \u0026amp; Claw\u003c\/i\u003e) imagines the inner lives of real people from the Barnum family and business, with the ambitious, exploitative P.T. Barnum serving as a decentered fulcrum...these stories vividly engage with their period images (“her knuckles... were the color of new cream”), providing a picture of what life with Barnum might have been like: “We are all his creatures.”\u003cbr\u003e—Publishers Weekly Online\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAn entertaining, absorbing look at the prominent figures in Barnum’s life that will appeal to his fans and history buffs in general. Recommended.\u003cbr\u003e—School Library Journal\u003cb\u003eDeborah Noyes \u003c\/b\u003eis the author of numerous books for children and adults, including the young adult short story collection \u003ci\u003eThe Ghosts of Kerfol \u003c\/i\u003eand the young adult novel \u003ci\u003ePlague in the Mirror\u003c\/i\u003e. She lives in western Massachusetts.\u003cb\u003eAugust 1842, New York City\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Mother snored on the daybed. There was a mermaid swimming just upstairs somewhere, in the museum, and Mother snored.\u003cbr\u003e Caroline lifted her mother’s heavy arm to tug out the news sheet, letting it drop again. The mermaid was in the paper today. Daddy’s museum was often in the news, but more so since the ladyfish arrived.\u003cbr\u003e Her father had read the article aloud over breakfast. An engraving showed the creature at rest on a rock beside two elegant sister mermaids. She stared into a hand mirror, and her breasts were bare. Caroline knew Mother was scandalized by the set of her mouth and the way she blew on her tea to avoid their eyes. “Questions?” she chirped, in a tone that warned,\u003ci\u003e don’t ask\u003c\/i\u003e.\u003cbr\u003e Caroline shrugged. Though she was nine and Helen two, they saw breasts all the time —​Mother’s, while baby Frances sucked.\u003cbr\u003e When their mother fed Frances right at the breakfast table that morning, Daddy had called her a “fishwife.” At first, this confused Caroline. Did he mean Charity Barnum was the ladyfish, the same mermaid on display upstairs? But how? Mother mostly stood by the window or dozed on the daybed, as now, but she never left their sight. And when she unfastened her dressing gown to feed Frances, her bosom did not in any way resemble the graceful mermaids’.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Caroline knew to guard her questions. She would rather solve them herself when she could, and Madge had used the same word last week, only differently. \u003ci\u003eFishwife \u003c\/i\u003emeant “common,” Caroline deduced with pride.\u003cbr\u003e But this morning she had another question, one she couldn’t answer herself.\u003cbr\u003e Daddy replied with his back to her, riffling through a pile of contracts. “It’s the medicine.”\u003cbr\u003e Answers made more questions sometimes, especially Daddy’s answers, but with his back to her, he couldn’t see her furrowed brow. He had found the page he was looking for and scanned it triumphantly, crushing the paper in his hands. “That’s what makes her sleep so much.” He looked up sympathetically. “The medicine.”\u003cbr\u003e Whatever was on the paper had brightened his mood. Daddy felt sorry for his “wild three,” he confided, kneeling by them, but “for the old girl’s sake”— ​he pointed his dimpled chin at Mother on the lounge —“you’ll have to keep your voices down today.”\u003cbr\u003e He paused over the cradle to fuss with Frances’s blanket. Daddy hated baby talk (there was altogether too much “pootsy-​wootsy mamby-​pamby” spoken to children, he maintained) but resorted to it now to make his point. “Let my girls be doves”— ​he looked back at them —“and coo like this —​\u003ci\u003ecoo, coo, coo —​\u003c\/i\u003euntil she wakes.”\u003cbr\u003e Two of three ­Barnum daughters cooed on command until Helen broke off, boldly asking the real question: “But \u003ci\u003ewhen\u003c\/i\u003e will Mother get up?”\u003cbr\u003e A Helen question was a thorn lodged in your thumb. You carried it around until someone saw your discomfort and removed it. Daddy admired her candor —​yet another reason Caroline often itched to slap Helen or shake her; however clever she might be, Helen was young enough to fall for the same games over and over. \u003ci\u003eLook into my hand, \u003c\/i\u003eCaroline would coax, opening a fist. \u003ci\u003eCloser . . . see? You trust me, right?\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Slap, slap.\u003cbr\u003e Daddy tied a silk cravat at his throat. The hired girl would be here soon, he said. Madge came mornings to tidy and heat broth for their lunch. Sometimes, when Frances wailed for no reason and Mother shut herself in her room after Daddy left for the day, Madge bounced the furious infant round the house on her hip. “Colic,” she’d say, scowling at Mother’s door.\u003cbr\u003e “You said after this week we would never drink broth again,” Helen observed with her air of being disappointed in advance. Daddy said it made her sound more like the old men who played chess outside Philosophers’ Hall, his favorite barbershop, than a child. “You said we’d dine with the Astors.”\u003cbr\u003e “And I am a man of my word.”\u003cbr\u003e He chucked Helen’s chin —​dimpled, like his. Everyone said they looked alike, while Caroline had Mother’s sleepy eyes if not her underwater slowness —​no mermaid moved like Mother. Mermaids were bullet swift.\u003cbr\u003e Unless you had Daddy’s promises in writing, Mother said, he rarely kept them, and anyway he made everything up. Unlike those of the boys in school stories —​who tied your braid to the back of your chair —​his jokes were on whole cities. All of New York suffered Daddy’s whims and hoaxes, and he had crowned himself the Prince of Humbug.\u003cbr\u003e “Receipts tripled this week, my girls.” With his document tucked under an arm, he bent to kiss their foreheads. Caroline winced when he gave the cradle a shove so sleeping Frances tipped on roily seas. “Our ladyfish will extend her stay.”\u003cbr\u003e Caroline sat on her hands. It did not do to betray enthusiasm. “Please let me see the mermaid?” she blurted. “Is she beautiful like the picture?” She had other questions, too. Were the mermaid’s scales as sharp as steel blades? Did you have to cover your ears when she sang or be deafened?\u003cbr\u003e But Mr. Barnum was needed at the office. “Proceeds will not count themselves.” He tipped his hat.\u003cbr\u003e “I would like to see the mermaid also,” Helen added, almost too quietly to be heard.\u003cbr\u003e Caroline gasped. The audacity. Daddy despised repetition.\u003cbr\u003e But he turned his wrath on \u003ci\u003eher, \u003c\/i\u003enot Helen. He leaned on Caroline’s chair arms and nearly knocked his forehead against hers while she held admirably still. “Nownownow,” he teased with a mean twinkle in his eye — in the same \u003ci\u003etsk \u003c\/i\u003evoice he sometimes used on Mother, who withdrew into herself like a duck into its feathers — ​and out he went, the hall door clicking shut behind him.\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003ePatience is a virtue.\u003c\/i\u003e","brand":"Candlewick","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46303414616293,"sku":"NP9780763659813","price":17.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780763659813.jpg?v=1767743655","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/we-are-all-his-creatures-tales-of-p-t-barnum-the-greatest-showman-isbn-9780763659813","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}