This new series – Piper Morgan- will fill a niche for those girls where there is a working mother with no father in the picture.

Piper is a 6 or 7 year old girl who loves to please. Piper wants to make friends, but Piper often jumps to conclusions about the new people she meets. Sometimes she is right and sometimes she is not. Piper’s mother works hard at her job, but her jobs never last very long. “My mom’s new job was as an assistant. That means she takes care of stuff for people. A person will send her jobs to take care of stuff for people, but the jobs are only temporary … For now, we were going to live with the traveling circus people.” (3) So begins the first book in this series.

While Piper’s mother is working, Piper becomes part of the ‘Little Explores’ section of the circus. The Little Explorers are the young children of the circus staff and performers. The Little Explorers do little acts between the major circus acts in the rings. Piper is to be a dancer along with the other Little Explorers. On her first night, she forgets her dance steps, then falls on another dancer, causing a domino affect of fallen dancers. The other Little Explorers are upset with Piper, but Big Top Bubba explains to all the children mistakes happen all the time. Circus is family and family helps each other. Big Top Bubba then has Lexie become Piper’s mentor.

Piper is set for the next performance. This time April starts the Little Explorers’ dance too soon, but the others follow her. Everyone’s timing is off. Piper starts doing cartwheels. Then, she bumps into a clown, who bumps into a dog act, who bumps into another act. The audience loves the chaos that follows as Piper tries to catch the dogs that are now out of control. The other Little Explorers help, too. The show most go on. Soon everything is back to normal.

Then, mom’s job is over and Piper leaves the circus. Stay tuned for book two in this new series.

Author, Stephanie Faris, has placed “Fairground Facts” trivia at the end of each of the ten chapters. Illustrator, Lucy Fleming, has two or three soft pencil drawings intermixed throughout each chapter. These sketches often show just the right facial expressions.