Ephemia Rimaldi
Circus Performer Extraordinaire
by Linda Demeulemeester
Red Deer Press, 2023
ISBN 978-0889957299
$14.95, 248 pp, ages 9+
reddeerpress.com
BC author Linda Demeulemeester originally hoped to write a time travel novel that centred on a curse, but she instead chose to focus on a budding suffragette who ends up joining a circus at the turn of the last century. Protaganist Effy is a twelve-year- old Toronto girl who finds herself without a guardian when her beloved Aunt Ada passes away. Hoping to safeguard her education trust fund from rapacious relatives, Effy sets out to Bridal Falls to find her circus ringmaster father Phineas Rimaldi, who abandoned her years earlier, in the faint hope that he can protect her inheritance. What follows are a series of entertaining episodes where she sabotages the work of a “flimflam” mystic who had offered her work, takes an embarrassing turn on the trapeze, and then finally finds her role as a velocipede daredevil. In the end, her father does protect her inheritance, and Effy is able to continue her educational pursuits.
Classroom Connections: Demeulemeester’s novel brings this period of Canadian history alive with a series of exciting adventures (including befriending a jewelry-stealing circus elephant and her Sri Lankan caretakers) that offer insight into early 20th-century concerns about feminism, poverty, and the humane treatment of animals. Certainly, these are themes that still resonate today, as the author observes in an interview included at the end of the book. Ephemia Rimaldi could be assigned for a novel study since this engaging piece of historical fiction will manage to hold the attention of most junior/intermediate-aged readers.
Review by George Sheppard.
This review is featured in Canadian Teacher Magazine’s Spring 2025 issue.
