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Editorial Content for Big Top Burning: The True Story of an Arsonist, a Missing Girl, and The Greatest Show On Earth

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Big Top Burning: The True Story of an Arsonist, a Missing Girl, and The Greatest Show On Earth

Contributors

Christine M. Irvin

Reviewer (text)

Christine Irvin
I had never heard of the big fire that destroyed a Ringling Bros. Barnum & Bailey Circus tent in 1944 in Hartford, Connecticut before reading BIG TOP BURNING by Laura A. Woollett. The fire, which destroyed the tent in less than 10 minutes, killed 167 people and injured dozens more. It made headlines across the country.
 
Woollett sifted through police reports, newspaper articles, interviews and eye witness accounts searching for information about this tragic fire. The official report says the cause of the fire was undetermined. After following all the events in the book, the reader is left to decide for himself if the fire was arson or accidental.
 
No matter your opinions or conclusions about the fire and the mystery of the missing girl, you will have to agree that the author did a thorough job of researching these historical events. 
 
There is a secondary storyline/mystery in the text --- was the unidentified remains of a little girl found after the fire actually Eleanor Cook? Cook disappeared after the circus and was never found. In 1991, the town of Hartford put up a memorial in honor of Eleanor, believing the remains to be hers, but not everyone is convinced. 
 
No matter your opinions or conclusions about the fire and the mystery of the missing girl, you will have to agree that the author did a thorough job of researching these historical events. She includes quotes from eye witnesses, and the back matter includes extensive Notes and a Bibliography. There are also plenty of photos scattered throughout the pages.
 
If history is your thing, then this is a good book for you to read. If mysteries and who-dun-its are your thing, then you’ll enjoy this book for that reason, too. If you just like a good story, then you’ll also enjoy this book.

Teaser

 

Big Top Burning investigates the 1944 Hartford circus fire and invites readers to take part in a critical evaluation of the evidence. The fire broke out at 2:40 p.m. Thousands of men, women, and children were crowded under Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey’s big top watching the Flying Wallendas begin their death-defying high-wire act. Suddenly someone screamed “Fire!” and the panic began. By 2:50 the tent had burned to the ground. Not everyone had made it out alive.

Promo

Big Top Burning investigates the 1944 Hartford circus fire and invites readers to take part in a critical evaluation of the evidence. The fire broke out at 2:40 p.m. Thousands of men, women, and children were crowded under Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey’s big top watching the Flying Wallendas begin their death-defying high-wire act. Suddenly someone screamed “Fire!” and the panic began. By 2:50 the tent had burned to the ground. Not everyone had made it out alive.

About the Book

Big Top Burning investigates the 1944 Hartford circus fire and invites readers to take part in a critical evaluation of the evidence
 
The fire broke out at 2:40 p.m. Thousands of men, women, and children were crowded under Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey’s big top watching the Flying Wallendas begin their death-defying high-wire act. Suddenly someone screamed “Fire!” and the panic began. By 2:50 the tent had burned to the ground. Not everyone had made it out alive.
 
With primary source documents and survivor interviews, Big Top Burning recounts the true story of the 1944 Hartford circus fire—one of the worst fire disasters in U.S. history. Its remarkable characters include Robert Segee, a 15-year-old circus roustabout and known pyromaniac, and the Cook children, Donald, Eleanor, and Edward, who were in the audience when the circus tent caught fire. Guiding readers through the investigations of the mysteries that make this moment in history so fascinating, this book asks: Was the unidentified body of a little girl nicknamed “Little Miss 1565” Eleanor Cook? Was the fire itself an act of arson—and did Robert Segee set it? Big Top Burning combines a gripping disaster story, an ongoing detective and forensics saga, and World War II–era American history, inviting middle-grades readers to take part in a critical evaluation of the evidence and draw their own conclusions.