In the spirit of Peter Spier's Rain (1982) and Peter Spier's Christmas (1983, both Doubleday), this premier illustrator offers a glorious new treat. As the Circus McNulty rolls into town, readers see an empty field transformed into a miniature village, with a one-room school housed in a trailer truck; a vet who checks all the animals before the performance; and an international troupe of trainers, clowns, and acrobats. After the players have been introduced, it's showtime: trick riders; trained seals, bears and lions; plate spinners; and the human cannonball. Even the intermission has its joys. "But all good things must come to an end . . . " As the cars slowly bump their way out, the cleanup crew is hard at work; and six hours later the field is left once again to the rabbits. The focus here is on the pictures, of course, with the breezy text serving more as captions than story. Spier's familiar blues and greens are used to great effect in the moonlit double spreads of the elephants parading to and from the train, and bright splashes of red and yellow in smaller, cartoon pictures that break up the pages. He has a sharp eye for the kind of detail young readers like. Better suited for individual reading than for storytimes, this will be a great addition to the always-sparse selection of circus books, and children will undoubtedly want to pore over it. Buy lots--you'll need them! --Caroline Parr, Central Rappahannock Regional Library, Fredericksburg, VA Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc