Happy Nonfiction Monday! Today's host is Playing By The Book and there are a lot of books to go check out at the round up so stop by there to see if anything catches your eye.At the library, I created a biography display and decided that this was the perfect opportunity to read Sid Fleischman's Escape: the story of the great Houdini published in 2006 from Greenwillow Books.
What Caught My Eye: What a great illustration on the cover! . The famous Harry Houdini attempting to escape from a tank of water upside down!!! I also loved the font used for the title.
Why I finished it: Well, honestly, I did not really finish this one. Sid Fleischman injects some of his humor in it that I did not find all that funny. I actually thought it was a little too much like he was trying to hard to entertain the kid who would pick it up. The information about Harry Houdini was very interesting and the photos were great to show Houdini's transformation. But at times, he also added those "funny" anecdotes in the captions and I thought it was unnecessary. The last couple of chapters I skimmed through. Some of the things I learned is that Houdini was a lot more popular in Europe than America and that he did not really consider America his home; he married the love of his life rather quickly (2 weeks!); he collected all books and flyers related to magicians and gifted it to the the Library of Congress; that his entire life is still a bit of a mystery.
Who Would You Recommend This To: A kid (middle schooler) interested in Harry Houdini.
2 comments:
I wonder if you read his biography on Mark Twain, and if so, did you enjoy that one better?
Hi Mama Librarian, I have not read that one. I will see if we have it in our library. That might be my next Nonfiction Monday read :)
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