Learning the Ropes

Mandy dreams of a career in the circus, working as an aerialist who specializes in rope climbing.

When Mandy is accepted into the prestigious Montreal Circus College summer program, she feels that she is finally on her way to fulfilling her dreams. At circus camp she is befriended—and challenged—by young circus performers from around the world. Circus camp turns out to be a magical combination of work and play, but when a veteran aerialist is killed in a fall, Mandy must confront the reality of circus life.

This short novel is a high-interest, low-reading level book for middle-grade readers who are building reading skills, want a quick read or say they don’t like to read! The epub edition of this title is fully accessible.

Monique Polak is the author of over 30 books for young people including Remember This: The Fascinating World of Memory, Open Science: Knowledge for Everyone and What World is Left. She is a three-time winner of the Quebec Writers’ Federation Prize for Children’s and YA Literature, now called the Janet Savage Blachford Prize. Her work has also been nominated for prizes such as the Geoffrey Bilson Award for Historical Fiction and the Arthur Ellis Award. She lives in Montreal.

This is Monique Polak’s seventeenth novel for young adults. Her historical novel What World Is Left won the 2009 Quebec Writers’ Federation Prize for Children’s and Young Adult Literature. Monique is also a journalist whose work appears regularly in the Montreal Gazette and in Postmedia publications across Canada. She has been teaching English literature and humanities at Marianopolis College in Montreal, Quebec, for thirty years. Monique lives in Montreal with her husband.