Mirette on the High Wire - Emily Arnold Mccully

Mirette lives in a boarding house surrounded by actors, dancers, jugglers and mimes. Her life is filled with exciting stories and fascinating people. None as magical as the stranger Mirette discovers crossing the courtyard on air--a tightrope walker. Mirette becomes the stranger's pupil and learns to walk the wire. Features brilliant watercolor and gouache paintings, reminiscent of the French Impressionists. 1993 Caldecott Medal winner. nOne day, a mysterious stranger arrives at a boardinghouse of the widow Gateau- a sad-faced stranger, who keeps to himself. When the widow's daughter, Mirette, discovers him crossing the courtyard on air, she begs him to teach her how he does it. nBut Mirette doesn't know that the stranger was once the Great Bellini- master wire-walker. Or that Bellini has been stopped by a terrible fear. And it is she who must teach him courage once again. n nEmily Arnold McCully's sweeping watercolor paintings carry the reader over the rooftops of nineteenth-century Paris and into an elegant, beautiful world of acrobats, jugglers, mimes, actors, and one gallant, resourceful little girl.n