Circus Arts – A Teacher's Guide
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ISBN:
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Author: Jason Catanzariti

Reviewer: Wendy Cowan

The purpose of the book, Circus Arts - A Teacher's Guide, is to teach the concepts and skills required to perform a variety of "circus act" type manipulative activities. The author certainly achieved this purpose. Circus Arts has been written with such detail that even the novice physical educator can easily implement the lessons. All grade levels of physical education instructors, depending on their student's familiarity with juggling and the additional activities incorporated into the book, can easily utilize the materials covered in this book.

The book, including table of contents and introductory pages, is 109 pages in length. The text is very user friendly, including verbal cues to be utilized during instruction, and great illustrations of students performing the actual activities. In addition, the author includes research supporting the incorporation of the featured activities into physical education programs. This is very interesting, and is an added benefit of the text. The research information can be utilized by an instructor when appliying for a grant to purchase the equipment needed to implement the activities in the textbook. I was very unaware of the research related to the activities in Circus Arts.

I love the chapter "Putting on a Student Circus." This is great information for organizing PTA performances, etc. This chapter is definitely a great asset to the physical education instructor who often has the "desire" to create a performance but lacks the "creativity" to choreograph it.

Although I do not have any concerns related to the content of the book, some of it may be difficult to implement in large class situations due to limited supplies and small teacher to pupil ratios. A great accompaniment to the book would be online Quicktime videos where the actual skill can be viewed in "real time." I award the book a star scale rating of for content, ease of reading, and creativity, but a star for practicality of the lessons covered in chapters 5 and 6.