THE STORY OF CIRRUS FLUX

Jon Smith smoothly handles the complex interweaving of an alternate eighteenth-century London setting and fantastical story details. Twelve-year-old orphan Cirrus Flux becomes a runaway from the foundling hospital when unscrupulous characters, including a mesmerist and the director of the Hall of Wonders, attempt to steal his “token.” This small globe on a chain—left with him when his father brought him to the orphanage as a baby—contains “the breath of God.” Smith gives each character, young and old, friend and foe, a distinctive voice and appropriately paces the narration right to the story’s climactic conclusion—when another orphan and a seaman friend of his father come to Cirrus’s rescue in a hot-air balloon powered by the last remaining firebird. C.R.A. © AudioFile 2011, Portland, Maine [Published: JANUARY 2011]