Section one covers juggling with scarves. Not only are progressions well covered but some fun-sounding cooperative games and tag games are explained. One group activity has the children in a circle and then, on a command, everyone throws his/her scarf in the air and rotates one or two positions to make a catch. A tag game has everyone with three scarves hanging out of the back of their pants like turkey feather to be plucked. Another interesting discussion in this section relates to whether or not positive transfer can be expected to occur from scarf juggling to ball juggling. Catanzariti believes that little transfer will be seen. I like how he brings in research finding to supports his argument.

Sections II, III, and IV deal with juggling of balls and beanbags and other objects. The other objects range from rings, to pins, to beach balls, to rubber chickens. The pros and cons of ball and beanbag juggling are discussed. Many suggestions and trouble shooting hints are given for helping students learn to juggle three balls. And after they have mastered three-ball juggling (20 tosses), a number of easy to hard tricks are explained. There are good ideas for partner juggling and how to learn four-ball juggling. One pedagogical suggestion I particularly liked was that of having the performer begin juggling with the stunt itself. In other words, if the student wished to learn to juggle under-the-leg, the first ball should be thrown under the leg to begin the sequence.

Section V is devoted to manipulation activities. These skills were all new to me but I feel that they were explained well enough, and enthusiastically enough, for me to want to given them a try. A partial listing contains devil sticks, spinning plates, diabolos, nesting cups, cigar boxes and hat tricks. It made spinning plates and cups sound feasible -- what a kick that would be for kids!

A big part of Section VI was devoted to unicycling and stilt walking. I wish I had read this book years ago; I could have provided much better teaching progressions than what I did. Beyond simply riding, unicycle goals such as rocking, free mounts, backward riding, and partner stunts are well covered.

The last two sections, VII and VIII, pulled things together with Unit Planning/Course Design and Putting On a Student Circus. Unit planning ideas are given for all age groups from one week K-2, to university circus arts courses. And the culminating event ideas sound like fun and should make a good base from which to build.

Finally, there are appendices that should be useful for those who want more. Up-to-date resource books are listed as are organizations and internet sites. And there addresses for equipment dealers.

For more information, or to order this book, click here.

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