Reese's Review of Mirette on he High Wire

Caldecott Honor Book

Exposition:  A young girl named Mirette, whose mother runs a boarding house, listens to stories of performers who stay in the boarding house as she helps her mother run it.

Conflict: Mirette wants to learn to walk the high wire after she sees a legendary retired high wire walk, who is staying at the boarding house, walking on the laundry line.

Rising Action: At first he refuses to teach her, but she decides to learn on her own.  He sees her and finally relents. An agent arrives who talks about the legendary high wire artist’s feats, and Mirette is fascinated.  She soon learns he is fearful now of the wire, and battles fear herself.

Climax: Bellini, the high wire artist, faces his fear and decides to walk across from rooftop to rooftop on a high wire. He freezes in fear as he begins.

Falling Action:  Mirette runs up and meets him out on the high wire.  Bellini, with the encouragement of Mirette, walks across the high wire.

Resolution: Mirette sees a poster that features she and Bellini as wire walkers together.

Quality of Illustrations:  McCully uses the impressionistic style to emphasize the movement of walking over the high wire.  The colors in the scenes that show Bellini feats are bright suggesting the giddy mood of the people who had been witness to them. By contrast, McCully uses darker colorations in the scenes where the crowd is waiting with baited breath for Bellini to complete his walk across the wire after he freezes.

McCully, E.A. (1992). Mirette on the high wire. New York: Scholastic.