Most Popular Books by Sid Fleischman

A Prince and a Pauper Jemmy, once a poor boy living on the streets, now lives in a castle. As the whipping boy, he bears the punishment when Prince Brat misbehaves, for it is forbidden to spank, thrash, or whack the heir to the throne. The two boys have nothing in common and even less reason to like one another. But when they find themselves taken hostage after running away, they are left with no choice but to trust each other.

Jack and his aunt''s butler stow away aboard a ship bond for California and the promise of gold.

A lonely old farmer realizes the value of human friendship when a young man comes to help him and his scarecrow with their farm.

The McBroom family is plagued by a mysterious ghost that visits their amazing one-acre farm after every prolonged freezing spell.

There''s a mile-long word for the fear (and magic) of the number thirteen-triskaidekaphobia. In this comic fireworks of a novel, newly orphaned Buddy Stebbins stumbles onto the 13th floor of a shabby old building and finds himself transported aboard a leaking pirate ship in a howling storm--300 years in the past! Cast adrift, he washes up in New England where his plucky ancestor, ten-year-old Abigail, is caught up in the witchcraft mania and is about to be hanged. Firing off surprises like Roman candles from almost every page, award-winning novelist Sid Fleischman tells a many-mirrored tale of ghosts, witchcraft, razzle-dazzle treasure, and the mischief of illusion and delusion. There''s a mile-long word for the fear (and magic) or the number thirteen - triskaidekaphobia. In this comic fireworks of a novel, newly orphaned Buddy Stebbins stumbles onto the 13th floor of a shabby old building and finds himself transported aboard a leaking pirate ship in a howling storm - 300 years in the past! Cast adrift, he washes up in New England where his plucky ancestor, ten-year-old Abigail, is caught up in the witchcraft mania and is about to be hanged. Firing off surprises like Roman candles from almost every page, award-winning novelist Sid Fleischman tells a many-mirrored tale of ghosts, witchcraft, razzle-dazzle treasure, and the mischief of illusion and delusion.

Enemies at first sight Orphaned Bo Gamage has nowhere to go. So he ends up in the old Queen of Sheba Hotel in a ghost town in the middle of the desert. It''s dry and bare and -- worst of all -- the only other kid there is his awful cousin Madeleine, who calls herself Mzzz Mad. Soon, they''re caught up in a battle for a missing map, the mystery of the tattooed head, and the search for the old Pegleg Smith gold mine. Then Bo and Mzzz Mad find themselves in deadly danger and handcuffed -- together!

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. Here, too, are rare photographs never before seen by the general reader!

A one-man dog Part wolf and fiercely independent, Jim Ugly is a dog who answers to only one person. Unfortunately, that man -- Sam Bannock -- has disappeared. Rumor has it that Sam is dead, but to his son, Jake, something about that doesn''t sound quite right. So Jake and Jim Ugly embark on a wild journey into the frontier West, where they find themselves pursued by a pretty lady, a theater troupe, and one very ornery yellow-legged man. And they all want to know one thing: Where is Sam Bannock?

Twelve-year-old Annyrose related her adventures with Joaquin Murieta and his band of outlaws in the California gold-mining region during the mid-1800s.

On a coach bound for Cricklewood, the orphan boy Touch caught his first glimpse of the haunt named The Great Chaffalo. According to rumor, he was once a famous magician who could turn a pile of straw into a horse. Now, Touch needs the ghost''s help in order to escape his wicked great-uncle. So, with an armload of straw and a determined spirit, Touch makes his plea to The Great Chaffalo -- and, magically, a horse appears! But can magic save Touch when his great-uncle’s schemes grow even more villainous?

In the further adventures of Josh McBroom, the crops grow so fast, you''d better step out of the way when you plant corn, red barns turn blue in the cold, and words freeze still in mid-air. "As fresh as ever."--Booklist.

After leaving their rocky Connecticut farm to seek their fortunes in the West, Josh McBroom, his wife Melissa, and their eleven redheaded children stop in Iowa where they become the owners of a small but very unusual piece of property.

A gentleman''s gentleman from Boston flees to the wilds of California during the Gold Rush and becomes a hero.

How can a beautiful white elephant be a terrible curse? Run-Run, a young elephant trainer, discovers the answer when he incurs the fury of the prince. The boy''s punishment? The gift of an elephant, white as a cloud. From that moment forward, the curse reveals itself. According to tradition, so rare an elephant cannot be allowed to work for its keep. It is poor Run-Run who must feed the beast the hundreds of pounds of food it eats each day, and scrub it clean, and brush its pom-pom of a tail, and wash behind its ears, and, above all, keep it from doing any work. Oh, if only Run-Run could make the magnificent white elephant disappear! Clever as a magician, he does—but the curse has tricks of its own for Run-Run.

One night The Great Freddie, a young ventriloquist, is possessed by a dybbuk. A what? A Jewish spirit. A scrappy demon who glows as if spray-painted by moonlight. The dybbuk is revealed to be the ghost of a twelve-year-old boy named Avrom Amos, a victim of the Nazis during World War II. In a plucky scheme to seek revenge, he commandeers The Great Freddie''s stage act and entraps the entertainer in the postwar ashes of Germany. Behind the footlights, the dybbuk lights up the terrible fate of a million and a half Jewish children, including Avrom himself. What tricks does the dybbuk have up his ghostly sleeve? Prepare to be astonished. . . .

So begin the adventures of young Oliver Finch, born at the stroke of midnight. Believing that Oliver can spy out ghosts, Captain Scratch kidnaps him, bringing him aboard the notorious pirate vessel Bloody Hand. The ship sails the high seas in pursuit of the ghost of Gentleman Jack, who paces his grave where the pirate treasure lies buried. A despicable pirate captain, a mutinous crew, a band of sly sea ghosts—Oliver is determined to outfox them all and get safely home. It''s a tale of treachery, intrigue, and suspense!

Welcome to Humbug Mountain. Little did Wiley, the son of a traveling newspaperman, imagine that the search for his grandfather would lead him into the hands of those nasty villains of the West—Shagnasty John and the Fool Killer. Using their newspaper, The Humbug Mountain Hoorah, Wiley and his sister and mother go about outwitting the outlaws in their scheme to ambush Grandfather''s new boat and its cargo of gold.

Jingo Hawks is out of luck when Mrs. Daggatt from the orphan house hires him out as a chimney sweep to the awful General Dirty-Face Scurlock. But it''s gypsy luck that puts Jingo into the right chimney and then into the care of the mysterious Mr. Peacock, who claims to know Jingo''s scoundrel father. Together they set out on a treasure hunt for buried gold. But they are not alone. Those nasty gold diggers Mrs. Daggatt and General Scurlock are hot on their trail.

A swashbuckling pirate ship cuts through the early morning fog. Crouching like a tiger about to spring, her figurehead is a huge and ferocious rat with crooked teeth and gouged-out eyes. When the daring Giant Rat of Sumatra drops anchor in San Diego, twelve-year-old cabin boy Shipwreck only wants to begin his long journey home to Boston. Instead he encounters: snarling mutineers barefoot bandits hairbreadth escapes duels cunning barkeeps simmering revenge secret identities scrappy orphans betrayals lost loves old enemies new villains heroic last stands and razzle-dazzle treasure so well hidden that only someone as quick and clever as Shipwreck could keep up with it. Plucked from the sea by the most notorious pirate in the Pacific, Shipwreck discovers his adventure is only beginning.

A madcap tale of fog and phantoms Opie and Aunt Etta think there''s something funny going on when Professor Pepper announces that he''s going to raise the ghost of a dead outlaw--live on stage. Can Opie cut through all t he fog to get to the bottom of the professor''s plans? See the Ghost of Crookneck John! That''s what Professor Pepper''s sign promises, and Opie can hardly wait to see such a sight. But the unseen specter escapes from his coffin during the show, and if that weren''t bad enough, the town bank is robbed too! Is Crookneck John a bandit from beyond the grave--or is more than the fog being pulled over the townsfolk''s'' eyes? A reissue of one of Sid Fleischman''s early novels.

"Mark Twain was born fully grown, with a cheap cigar clamped between his teeth." So begins Sid Fleischman''s ramble-scramble biography of the great American author and wit, who started life in a Missouri village as a barefoot boy named Samuel Clemens. Abandoning a career as a young steamboat pilot on the Mississippi River, Sam took a bumpy stagecoach to the Far West. In the gold and silver fields, he expected to get rich quick. Instead, he got poor fast, digging in the wrong places. His stint as a sagebrush newspaperman led to a duel with pistols. Had he not survived, the world would never have heard of Tom Sawyer or Huckleberry Finn—or red-headed Mark Twain. Samuel Clemens adopted his pen name in a hotel room in San Francisco and promptly made a jumping frog (and himself) famous. His celebrated novels followed at a leisurely pace; his quips at jet speed. "Don''t let schooling interfere with your education," he wrote. Here, in high style, is the story of a wisecracking adventurer who came of age in the untamed West; an ink-stained rebel who surprised himself by becoming the most famous American of his time. Bountifully illustrated.

The man with the spats rolled up his sleeves and proceeded to pluck a polished red billiard ball out of thin air. Presto! It vanished. Abracadabra! It reappeared. It turned white. it blushed red again. VoiIá! Suddenly there were four billiard balls between this amazing man''s fingers. I was stunned. All of this was happening right under my nose. And there was more. He flipped the deck into falling waterfalls of cards, spun them into fans, and thrust a sword through a shower of cards to impale the seven of diamonds -- selected a moment before. I was dazzled. The moment he finished his act and ushered us gawkers back onto the sidewalk, I knew what I wanted to be. Someone else could be president of the United States. I wanted to be a magician.

See him? That little tramp twitching a postage stamp of a mustache, politely lifting his bowler hat, and leaning on a bamboo cane with the confidence of a gentleman? A slapstick comedian, he blazed forth as the brightest movie star in the Hollywood heavens. Everyone knew Charlie—Charlie Chaplin. When he was five years old he was pulled onstage for the first time, and he didn''t step off again for almost three-quarters of a century. Escaping the London slums of his tragic childhood, he took Hollywood like a conquistador with a Cockney accent. With his gift for pantomime in films that had not yet acquired vocal cords, he was soon rubbing elbows with royalty and dining on gold plates in his own Beverly Hills mansion. He was the most famous man on earth—and he was regarded as the funniest. Still is. . . . He comes to life in these pages. It''s an astonishing rags-to-riches saga of an irrepressible kid whose childhood was dealt from the bottom of the deck. Abundantly illustrated.

Chancy and his family have fantastic adventures in the American West.

The war is on when the grasshoppers attack Josh McBroom''s fabulous one-acre farm and prize ear of corn.

Josh McBroom relates how he and his family harness the rambunctious prairie wind.

Bo and Mzzz Mad

Farmer McBroom decides to put an end to the drought. Adventures Of McBroom.

When Josh McBroom bought a farm for just ten dollars, he thought he had a marvellous bargain, until he discovered that the eighty acres were piled on top of each other like a pack of cards, and were under water too.

The McBrooms start a zoo with the Desert Vamooser, Silver-Tailed Teakettler, Sidehill Gouger, and other rare animals dropped in the path of the passing tornado.