The Greatest Show Off Earth

1 - I can do better 2 - Jury's out 3 - Pretty darn good 4 - Splendiferous 5 - Awesometastic by 2 people | Log in to rate

Ranked #1,646 in Books, #127,118 overall

The Greatest Show Off Earth - A Review of Margaret Mahy's Funny Juvenile Novel

My 14 year-old son tells me that Margaret Mahy's book, The Greatest Show off Earth, is a "superbly strange children's comedy with zany characters." Delphinium is an unappreciated young girl working on Space Station Vulnik, where fun is not allowed.

On her 10th birthday, Delphinium is suddenly thrust into an accidental adventure where she lands in a traveling space circus, The Wondershow. Here she meets such interesting folk as fearsome Bamba Caramba and his gang of 'scurvy' gymnast pirates, plenty of comical clowns, and other amusing circus folk.

In the midst of space battles and pie fights, Delphinium and friends try to save The Wondershow circus and the fun in the galaxy.

For ages Ages 8 to any age with a liking for humorous and rather odd sci-fi/fantasy.

My kids have been bugging me to read this for years. Wanna read it with me? Sound anything but boring!

The Greatest Show Off Earth 

The Greatest Show off Earth

Amazon Price: (as of 12/15/2009)Buy Now

Margaret Mahy is one of my 2 children's favorite authors - even now that they are Teens! Generally for ages 8-13, The Greatest Show Off Earth is a book they have read over and over! It is funny, exiting, has some interesting 'invented' space vocabulary, and is well-written.

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Love it! Great read.

kelz says:

One of my favorite childhood books. The characters are fun and sweet, the storyline is hysterical and random, and Margaret Mahy's writing style is irresistible. I recommend this book to anyone!!!

Emma says:

This is one of my VERY, VERY, VERY favorite books of ALL TIME!! It is so completely funny and clever. I read it about twice a year. (I am 13 years old now)

rms says:

I haven't read it but it looks like a fun read!

Not really my type.

 

"I believe that all good writers are original."
- Margaret Mahy"

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Quotes About Writing by Author Margaret Mahy 

Quotations thanks to www.brainyquote.com


Every writer has to find their own way into writing. - Margaret Mahy

I don't think I prefer writing for one age group above another. I am just as pleased with a story which I feel works well for very small children as I do with a story for young adults. - Margaret Mahy

Writing and reading seem to me to be different aspects of a single imaginative act. - Margaret Mahy

I am really chained to my computer these days so I work in my bedroom, which is a room I have worked in for years and years. It is just as much an office as a bedroom, and during the day, my bed is rather like an extension of my desk. - Margaret Mahy

I had to wait for a long time before I could support myself with writing. However, being a writer is what I have most wanted to be, from the time I was a child. - Margaret Mahy

I think I am too interested in my own ideas to copy anyone else's, but I find that other people's imagery, the flow of language in the outside world, games with words, and ideas about relationships are all most important to me. - Margaret Mahy

In a way, the characters often do take over. - Margaret Mahy

I was able to work out all sorts of attitudes to style and event and character, all of which affected the way I came to think about my own writing. I believe that all good writers are original. - Margaret Mahy

I, personally, have found reading a continual support to writing. - Margaret Mahy

The novels take longer to write than the picture book texts, and they do take a different sort of concentration. However, a very short, simple story that works well is just as exciting to me as any longer and more complex book. - Margaret Mahy

There are certainly times when my own everyday life seems to retreat so the life of the story can take me over. That is why a writer often needs space and time, so that he or she can abandon ordinary life and "live" with the characters. - Margaret Mahy

When you are reading, someone has done a lot of work on your behalf, someone has had ideas and has then written and corrected and improved them so that they can be shared. - Margaret Mahy

When you are writing, of course, you have to do all that writing and correcting for yourself. When I was a librarian it was expected that I would know about a wide range of books. - Margaret Mahy

Writing for young children I find I often use particular jokes with words and exaggerated, funny events, but some of these haunt the more complex stories for older children too. - Margaret Mahy

(photo of the Author and her dog, Baxter credited to http://christchurchcitylibraries.com)

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Margaret Mahy on Wikipedia 

Margaret Mahy ONZ (born in Whakatane, New Zealand on 21 March 1936) is a well-known New Zealand author of children's and young adult books. While the plots of many of her books have strong supernatural elements, her writing concentrates on the themes of human relationships and growing up.

Her books The Haunting and The Changeover: A Supernatural Romance both received the Carnegie Medal of the British Library Association. She has written a little less than 50 novels, including the recent Alchemy in 2002. Among her children's books, A Lion in the Meadow and The Seven Chinese Brothers and The Man Whose Mother was a Pirate are considered national classics. Her novels have been translated into German, French, Spanish, Dutch, Norwegian, Danish, Swedish, Finnish, Italian, Japanese, Catalan and Afrikaans. In addition, some stories have been translated into Russian, Chinese and Icelandic.

For her contributions to children's literature she has been made a member of the Order of New Zealand. The Margaret Mahy Medal Award was established by the New Zealand Children's Book Foundation in 1991 to provide recognition of excellence in children's literature, publishing and literacy in New Zealand. In 2006 she was awarded the Hans Christian Andersen Award (known as the Little Nobel Prize) in recognition of a "lasting contribution to children's literature". In March 2009, Mahy was commemorated as one of the Twelve Local Heroes, and a bronze bust of her was unveiled outside the Christchurch Arts Centre.

Margaret Mahy currently resides on Banks Peninsula, Canterbury, in the South Island of New Zealand.

Margaret Mahy's Official Website 

Margaret Mahy's Official Website

Click the line above to visit Margaret Mahy's Official Website in New Zealand! Check out all of Mahy's Wonderful Books!

What's the blog buzz about The Greatest Show Off Earth? 

obligatory happy new year! post. :d
the greatest show off earth - margaret mahy 97. beware the fish - gordon korman 98. the twinkie squad - gordon korman 99. lemony snicket: the unauthorised autobiography - daniel handler 100. night watch - terry pratchett ...
science fiction
the greatest show off earth by margaret mahy 10-year-old delphinium and her brother, jason, launch into hyperspace and find themselves in the middle of a traveling space circus. (grades 4-6). shade's children by garth nix ...
the no.8 wire - issue 70
mahy mayhem a mass reading of margaret mahy's poem down the back of the chair at libraries in hamilton. - "the people's poet" glenn colquhoun, winner of the readers choice award and the poetry category in the 2003 montana new zealand ...
Tor.com / Science fiction and fantasy / Blog posts / “I'm thirteen ...
Margaret Mahy. All her teenage books are excellent: they tend to have supernatural/fantastic elements. Kaitangata Twitch (now being made into a tv miniseries), The Haunting, The Changeover (both Carnegie Medal winners)...too many to list. The Greatest Show Off Earth is one of her rare SF ones, though with her trademark sense of humour. - Ken Catran. Deepwater Rising series (five or six books if I remember right). Teenagers on a far-future gene ark spacecraft, ...

Postscript of Utmost Importance 

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