If you're anything like me then you always wondered what it'd be like to join the circus. Well, here's your chance to follow one of the great performers, Tiny Kline, from her early days to her later career as the model for Tinkerbell in Peter Pan. Written in a sensible and enthusiastic voice, the memoir makes clear that Kline's got more vocabulary than some might expect (perhaps thanks to her editor). Kline diagrams routines, tent floor plans, social interactions in pleasant prose. This book is sure to please any circus theme collector and will quench the curiosity of the stadium-seat-ogler. ( )

Tiny Kline certainly had a long and interesting career in a few areas of show business that are not well-known today, such as the circus and vaudeville. Her book is a memoir that the editor discovered and published with edits and notes.

Despite Janet Davis' editing, the book is very much like a self-published memoir in that it was written entirely by Kline and lightly edited by Davis for publication. I would compare this book very favorably to the fair number of such memoirs I have read over the years. Kline had some gift for story-telling and -- most important for a memoir -- for knowing what to leave out. As a result, the book is an easy and enjoyable read.

Ultimately, this book will appeal to those interested in show business in the first half of this century, and mainly to those with a scholarly interest in original sources. ( )

The narrative of this book is often difficult to follow. While interesting, I think this book would have benefited from a stronger editorial presence. ( )

I went into this book fairly skeptical - a circus memoir? really? - but ended up completely charmed by Tiny Kline and her fascinating life. The book covers her early performing years, her short marriage to a stunt rider with the Barnum circus, which leads to a job with the circus after his tragic death, and then the process of working her way up through the ranks to become a featured performer.

What struck me the most, as someone who has done a bit of traveling performing myself, was how familiar it all seemed, despite the fact that I did a completely different type of show nearly 100 years later. Tiny's description of rehearsals, of the cramped traveling conditions, strict dressing room etiquette, seniority, even down to the distribution of schedules and the proper wrapping of cables all rang very true.

The memoir was written some decades ago and has been heavily edited to put it into some semblance of order and insert explanatory footnotes, which I enjoyed a lot - they add a lot of context essential to understanding the circus world that Tiny Kline inhabits. The tone remains Tiny Kline's, though - a bit unpolished but very authentic.

Overall, what seemed at first an obscure topic turned out being a very entertaining bit of insight into something I hadn't given a lot of thought before. It made me wish I could see a circus as it was in Tiny's Kline's time. ( )

CIRCUS QUEEN AND TINKER BELL: THE MEMOIR OF TINY KLINE is a fascinating, meticulously researched -- even extraordinary – book detailing a significant portion of the adult life of Tiny Kline, an early twentieth century American burlesque and circus performer. The book has a different origin than many memoirs: the editor, Janet Davis, was introduced to Kline’s rough manuscripts decades after her 1964 death. Captivated, Davis took on the documents as a scholarly project – and a work of love.

It shows.

Don’t let the word “scholarly” scare you away: Kline’s detailed account of her unconventional life is anything but dry. Vividly describing day-to-day life within the circus and entertainment subculture from roughly 1911-1943, Kline uniquely illuminates early twentieth-century American circus and entertainment life; social class, gender roles, ethnicity, racial dynamics, and risk, as well as immigration and assimilation.

The book can even be described as “archeological”, preserving a time and culture long gone. Davis’ extensive footnotes and original source documentation are remarkable and fascinating reading. How Tiny’s narrative, after languishing many years in the Circus World Museum archives, came to be published is a story unto itself.

While photographs are included, there are not many. There are even fewer of Kline. A picture is worth a thousand words, especially when picturing what is now essentially an alien world. While the era may have not been well-documented photographically, surely more photos are in existence. Inclusion of more pictures, and of larger sizes, would have been helpful. For example, I had a hard time picturing exactly what an “iron jaw” act was until encountering the photo on page 218 (unfortunately, not of Kline). No photographs of Kline’s famous “Slide for Life” are included, and the only contemporary portrait is of Kline attired in her Disney “Tinker Bell” costume. National Geographic even published a feature on Kline, in 1963, but no photos depict her aerial slides from Disneyland’s Matterhorn to Cinderella’s castle. Possibly photographic rights could not be obtained?

In summary, CIRCUS QUEEN AND TINKER BELL: THE MEMOIR OF TINY KLINE is a unique, fascinating window into an era’s unconventional subculture. A tip of the ringmaster’s top hat and a deep curtsy to editor Janet Davis! She has sensitively, respectfully, and meticulously preserved Kline’s legacy -- no mean feat. I greatly enjoyed this very engaging and readable book, and highly recommend it.

Circus affectionado or not, "Come one, come all!": I believe you’ll enjoy this remarkable memoir! ( )

Tiny Kline spent her entire life doing stunts. From youth to middle age, she worked with the circus, her love for which is apparent throughout the pages of her memoir. She continued doing iron jaw stunts, descending inclines at ridiculous speeds suspended only by her teeth, into old age and performed as Tinker Bell at Disneyland when she was in her 70s. By all accounts, Tiny Kline had a fascinating life. She really wrote two memoirs in an attempt to share that life with us. One contained mainly personal anecdotes, related to her work on the circus. The second mainly contained circus history and was stripped of these more intimate details. The editor, Janet M. Davis, combined the two to produce a memoir that is still Tiny’s but in a form readers will be more eager to consume.

This book was a very educational experience. Circus history, while an interesting topic, is not something that I’ve ever learned in school and there don’t seem to be many accessible books written on it. There is the fiction bestseller, Water for Elephants, which I read and loved earlier this year, but that’s about all I’ve seen on my book radar. When this popped up on LT Early Reviewers, I knew that I simply must read it. And good choice by me; this is a terrific memoir. The combination of memoirs is brilliantly done and I never noticed a gap between Tiny’s two styles of writing. It’s fascinating to see how the circus changed over time, the insider’s view of circus politics, and just how some performers climbed the career ladder faster than others. Tiny’s ambition was tremendous and it’s easy to see why she advances so quickly.

The book does read precisely as someone’s account of their life. Tiny was not the best writer and it’s evident at times that she had little training, but it never hampers this book, just makes the author more real, if that is possible. It reads like a letter written by a friend; conversational, easy tone. There were some nice touches put in by the editor, such as including photographs with Tiny’s descriptions of some of her fellow performers, all bringing the circus to life. Tiny admits one lapse in her introduction; she included some fictional romances to make the book more “exciting”, even though she never had a romantic interlude after her husband died shortly after their wedding. The fictional parts are obvious and only in one part of the book; I don’t count this against it, especially as she admits their existence before the book even begins.

I’d definitely be recommending this book and if you’re interested in circus history, you shouldn’t miss it. I’m glad that I didn’t!

http://chikune.com/blog/?p=237 ( )

Editors aren’t often considered heroes, but Janet M. Davis has earned herself that designation in my book. She saved from obscurity the memoir of Helen Deutsch a/k/a Tiny Kline (1891-1964), a burlesque and circus performer whose last professional gig was playing Tinker Bell at Disneyland. What a terrific story!

With Ms. Davis’s judicious and respectful editing of the memoirist’s two lengthy manuscripts – which I’m guessing would have been un-publishable without such help -- Tiny Kline’s voice comes through loud and clear. Not that hers is gorgeous writing – but it’s serviceable, and the language only occasionally shows evidence that English was not her first language. (My pet peeve is the misuse of “who” and “whom” and I didn’t catch any such errors the book – which is amazing even with the best writers!) I can just picture the tiny lady, Roget’s Thesaurus nearby, penning her story and documenting history which would have otherwise been lost.

The beauty of the book comes from not what Ms. Davis took away from the manuscript – mostly extraneous punctuation from what she tells readers – but what she added: voluminous footnotes which themselves contain her sources. (I don’t know what the rule is about footnotes in footnotes, but I’m sure there is one and the editor handled that quite nicely.)

Footnotes are chocked-full of biographical information about Mrs. Kline and the many circus people she encountered plus circus and burlesque vocabulary and lore that make the story understandable to those of not familiar with those entertainments. (The memoir is focused almost exclusively on the years 1911-1943 and on Mrs. Kline’s professional life. Her brief marriage to Otto Kline is covered in just a few paragraphs.)

It took me a little while to get into the rhythm of reading this book – switching back and forth between footnotes (which I read first) and Mrs. Kline’s story. It was well worth the effort. I would have liked info on Tiny Kline’s earlier life in Hungary – she shared that birthplace with my grandmother, who was born there in the 1880s and was, like Mrs. Kline, multilingual. The editor used all the tools of a good family historian to discover that earlier life but hit what we genealogists call a “brick wall.” Ms. Davis deserves many, many kudos for her work.