Amita Parikh

Lena and her widowed father, Theo, a master illusionist, join a traveling circus before WWII. The circus is called World of Wonders for its opulence and a cast of very talented circus performers. Lena is confined to a wheelchair due to polio that she contracted as an infant and feels very much an outlier among the children traveling with the circus due to her disability. When she discovers an injured boy her age in one of the circus cars, she and her father nurse Alexandre back to health and he becomes Theo's apprentice and Lena's good friend. The boy's passport indicates that he is Jewish, so they are determined to destroy it before it is found by the SS.

Their family is torn apart, leaving Lena very much on her own during the early days of WWII. Unbeknownst to her, Theo and Alexandre are taken to a concentration camp while she believes they have perished in a fire. After extensive physical therapy, she is able to walk and has made her way to a tutor she had in the circus, who establishes her in a boarding school. Following the war, they are reunited, and Theo divulges a secret.

Their circumstances require a suspension of disbelief, but it is interesting historical fiction.… (meer)

An illusionist, his daughter, her tutor, and an orphan travel through Europe on a circus train until WWII rips them apart.

Theo is the World of Wonders' illusionist; his daughter Lena's mother died just after she was born, and Lena caught polio at a young age and uses a wheelchair. Her tutor, Clara, ensures she has an excellent education, but Lena wants to have friends her own age. Her prayers are partly answered when Alexandre appears on the train, and thanks to Lena and Theo's intervention, is able to stay and train as an illusionist as well. As Germany becomes more aggressive, Theo plans to get himself, Lena, and Alexandre to safety in the United States, but the circus master discovers the plan and turns them over to the Germans. Theo and Alexandre are taken to Theresienstadt, but Lena thinks they're dead; she goes to Clara, who takes her in. Only years after the war are they reunited, and Theo has one last secret to reveal.

Quotes

Lena Papadopoulos didn't believe in magic....Lena's world was rooted in reality....Lena's disability had taught her a harsh truth: she was different, and people didn't like different. (30)

It was the pity that she hated more than anything else, the feeling she got from others that her life was somehow less because of her physical disability. (42)

"You know, just because someone says you have to be a certain way, or only do certain things, it doesn't mean you have to listen." (Johannes, 42)

"Sometimes the people who love us most hold us back because they want to protect us." (Clara to Lena, 120)

"Your greatest achievements often grow out of the worst circumstances." (Clara to Lena, 174)

When everyone else was busy telling her what she couldn't do, Alexandre had always seen what she could. (348)… (meer)