Book Review: Badger State Showmen by Fred Dahlinger, Jr. and Stuart Thayer (1998)

Synopsis: A non-fiction and illustrated historical account of Wisconsin's circus heritage and the people who were responsible for bringing entertainment to the crowds.

Review: I received Badger State Showmen as a birthday present a couple weeks ago and as someone who enjoys history, I decided to move it to the top of my reading list. Overall, it ended up being an enjoyable book.

I knew, mostly from our visits to Circus World Museum in Baraboo, Wisconsin had a long and historic connection to circuses. However, outside of only a handful of well-known circuses, I never really fully understood the full scope of that connection until reading this book, which also happened to be published by that museum.

The authors put in quite a bit of detail too. I had expected this to be a brief summary of the various circus owners and performers, but the book goes far above and beyond in that regard. In fact, there were a number of pages and paragraphs I had to re-read just because I wasn't able to absorb all the information the first time around.

The various illustrations and artwork scattered throughout the book are also notable, whether it is duplicates of circus posters or photographs of circus performances, they add just as much history to the book as the biographies and other historical information being provided. In fact, after reading the book, I took the time to flip through the pages just to look at some of those items with more attention. I'm not normally the kind of person who does that.

Final Opinion: This is a well-written and informative book that provides a lot of history about circuses in general, especially in the context of the state of Wisconsin. I enjoyed reading it and I'm sure my daughter, who is a huge circus fan, can't wait to read it next.

My Grade: A