Picasso and the Greatest Show on Earth

By: Anna Fienberg

Narrated by: Teo Vergara

Frances is in a new house in a new neighbourhood and going to a new school, but no amount of new can make her forget the old, sad secret dragging at her heart. Not the pictures of bacteria that she draws with painstaking precision, not even Picasso, the puppy with the long soft ears and the cute black circle like a target on his bottom.

Then Frances meets Kit, the tall, quiet boy with the two-coloured eyes. Kit is a real artist. His coloured pencils fill page after page of exercise books. He sees wonder in the rocks and ferns and sky. Though Kit has worries of his own.

But when secrets are spilled, Frances's life turns grey and drab. Not even Picasso's wet nose can brighten her up. Frances and Kit will need to face the truth of their pasts to find colour in their world again. After all, don't the most brilliant sunsets need a cloudy sky?

©2023 Copyright Anna Fienberg (P)2023 Bolinda Publishing

Critic reviews

'A beautifully written novel that encompasses such big things ... Frances, Kit and Picasso will stay with me for quite a while.' (Karen Foxlee, award-wining author of Lenny's Book of Everything)

'Marvellous, mind-opening, and deeply moving.' (Morris Gleitzman, one of Australia’s most popular authors)

Richly observed and laden with vocabulary and metaphor that will delight teachers and students alike, Fienberg has crafted a beautifully complex story. Push this into the hands of anyone who loved Storm Boy or Lenny’s Book of Everything.