Life Is a Circus, Charlie Brown to the entrance of the big top with his tongue hanging out and his pupils shaped like hearts, then stops. Polly, the dog's trainer, sees Snoopy and pulls him inside. The next day, Peppermint Patty calls Charlie Brown to tell him her school gave all students the day off to see the circus. Charlie Brown tells her that his school will be closed as well, and they decide to attend the circus together. At the circus the children see Snoopy perform as part of a dog act. They all realize it is Snoopy and eventually relish his new career, despite
The Circus Is Coming (1939) was illustrated by Richard Floethe in a striking but more conventional style. Another notable illustrator was Clarke Hutton whose illustrations for the 1947 edition also appeared in the 1956 Puffin Books edition. John Rowe Townsend describes "The Circus Is Coming" as Noel Streatfeild's best-known and possibly her best pre-war book. Townsend commends the detailed personal research which gives the book so much authenticity and compares it with Streatfeild's perceptive writing on family, suggesting that the circus is a "super-family". Roger Lancelyn Green mentions the novelistic skill and meticulous accuracy typical of Streatfeild's exceptional career books. In her biography of