The Story of Cirrus Flux, by Matthew Skelton, tells the tale of a young orphan boy in 1780s London, who is being raised in the Foundling Hospital, a place were poor folks leave the children they can't afford to keep, usually leaving a token with the child so that the child knows it was loved. But Cirrus doesn't have a token, or at least he thinks he doesn't; turns out that his father left him a sphere on a chain (so it could be worn around the neck), a sphere which has amazing properties. You see, his father was a seaman and in his sphere long ago, at the other side of the world, he had captured a bit of the Breath of God....Now Cirrus is 12 or so, and all of a sudden there are menacing people after him, all hunting for the sphere - a wicked mesmerist, a tiny man in a wheelchair who has an all-seeing eye, and a showman who uses newly discovered electricity to shock his patrons (and the little boys on whom he bestows jolts). It's up to Cirrus, the young orphan girl Pandora and the mysterious Mr. Hardy, an old friend of Cirrus' father who happens to have a hot-air balloon that is powered by the wings of a fiery phoenix, to outwit the evildoers and save the day....This is Skelton's second book (after Endymion Spring), and while it's not quite as wonderful as his first, it's well worth reading, particularly for the day-to-day aspects of 18th Century London. Recommended. ( )