Book Reviews:
Starred Review.
Grade 4-8–Fleischman looks at Houdini's life through his own eyes, as a fellow
magician. Guarding the secrets, yet entertaining readers, he tells the rags-to-rags
story of a poor Jewish boy named Ehrich Weiss, who longed to be like his idol,
French magician Robert-Houdin. Not satisfied to perform the usual magicians' fare,
he began perfecting tricks involving illusion, particularly escaping from restraints
such as trunks, handcuffs, and straightjackets. While performing in small medicine
shows and vaudeville theater, Ehrich, now Harry Houdini, met his wife and stage
partner, Bess. Houdini learned stunt flying and how to make elephants disappear
but gained the most attention from his public stunts, such as defying Scotland
Yard to keep him locked up, or wrapping himself in chains and jumping into a river.
Years later, he was about to perform his Chinese Water Torture trick when his
appendix ruptured and he died in a local hospital. Fleischman's tone is lively
and he develops a relationship with readers by revealing just enough truth behind
Houdini's razzle-dazzle to keep the legend alive....Fleischman's postscript shares
his own relationship with Madame Houdini, whom he visited at length when he was
a young man. Engaging and fascinating.
- School Library Journal
Could there be anyone more qualified than Newbery Medalist
Fleischman to profile the "monarch of manacles" for young audiences?
After all, as described in his autobiography, The Abracadabra Kid (1998), Fleischman
first earned his bread as a magician. This same background imposes an unexpected
limitation: although the bibliography suggests publications to aid aspiring illusionists,
Fleischman states upfront that an unspoken covenant among magicians prevents him
from revealing Houdini's secrets. It's a tribute to Fleischman's zinging prose
that, even without spoilers, his account remains terrifically engaging, delivered
in a taut sideshow patter packed with delicious vocabulary (prestidigitator, bunkum)
that may prompt even the most verbally indifferent to a new enthusiasm for their
dictionaries. The showy language comes with real substance, too, as Fleischman
explores his subject's tireless self-reinvention (born Ehrich Weiss in a Budapest
ghetto, the ambitious lad's stage name was just one of many image-buffing ruses);
his virulent egomania; and his forays into early aviation and cinema. The show-biz
details are as fascinating as the transformation of an immigrant whose "biggest
sleight-of-hand was himself," and, thanks to the widely spaced type..., this
will draw even those readers without a biography assignment hovering overhead.
That's some trick, indeed.
- ALA Booklist
SYNOPSIS:Who
was this man who could walk through brick walls and, with a snap of his fingers,
vanish elephants? In these pages you will meet the astonishing Houdini—magician,
ghost chaser, daredevil, pioneer aviator, and king of escape artists. No jail
cell or straitjacket could hold him! He shucked off handcuffs as easily as gloves.
In this fresh, witty biography of the most famous bamboozler since
Merlin, Sid Fleischman, a former professional magician, enriches his warm homage
with insider information and unmaskings. Did Houdini really pick the jailhouse
lock to let a fellow circus performer escape? Were his secrets really buried with
him? Was he a bum magician, as some rivals claimed? How did he manage to be born
in two cities, in two countries, on two continents at the same instant? Here
are the stories of how a knockabout kid named Ehrich Weiss, the son of an impoverished
rabbi, presto-changoed himself into the legendary Harry Houdini. |
Ages:
10 and up
CD: