![]() ![]() We learn a little bit about the history of the American carnival circuit, the business-like mind of the carnival owner, and how the interplay between superstition and weather patterns can combine to create legends. The Book of Speculation is a fun and educational read. Simon is worried about his younger sister Enola, who called out of the blue to tell him she’s on the way to visit him, and July is approaching. The last to suffer this fate was his mother, when Simon was still a child. In every generation, the women in his direct line have drowned on the 24th of July. A mermaid brings bad luck to everyone.Īs Simon reads through the book, he is not only caught up in the story he finds, but discovers he may be on to the key to the curse that afflicts his family. A young woman falls in love and is forbidden to pursue the water-dweller who calls to her from the river. A tarot reader sees darkness and death in the cards. A child is born of a mysterious union to a poor married woman on a small Virginia tobacco farm. ![]() The Book of Speculation fills in the blanks between the notes written by the carnival owner and the information that Simon is able to piece together through research. On some of the pages, there are drawings of tarot cards, mermaids, and horseshoe crabs. The book is a hand-written log of carnival business which includes not only the figures of income and expenses, but also stories of some of the people who worked for the carnival in the late 1700s. ![]()
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