Vendor
	Mohrbooks Literary Agency Sebastian Ritscher
Original language
English
Categories
Children’s, Teenage & Educational

HOUDINI AND ME

Dan Gutman

Harry has always admired the famous escape artist Houdini. And when Houdini asks for help in coming back to life, it seems like an amazing chance... or could it be Houdini's greatest trick of all?

Eleven-year-old Harry Mancini is NOT Harry Houdini--the famous escape artist who died in 1926. But Harry DOES live in Houdini's old New York City home, and he definitely knows everything there is to know about Houdini's life. What is he supposed to do, then, when someone starts texting him claiming that they're Houdini, communicating from beyond the grave? Respond, of course.

It's hard for Harry to believe that Houdini is really contacting him, but this Houdini texts the secrets to all of the escape tricks the dead Houdini used to do. What's more, Houdini's offering Harry a chance to go back in time and experience it for himself. Should Harry ignore what must be a hoax? Or should he give it a try and take Houdini up on this death-defying offer?

Dan Gutman is the award-winning author of series including My Weird School, The Genius Files, and the baseball card series, including Honus & Me. He uses his writing powers for good once again in this exciting new middle grade novel.

Available products
Book Published 2021-03-02 by Holiday House

Comments

[The] first-person narration includes facts about Houdini's life and famous feats, illustrated with intriguing vintage photos. This chapter book delivers a fast-paced, amusing tale, followed by an informative and very readable author's note.

Gutman (the My Weird School series) touches on profound topics through Harry's chatty narration, such as the boy's yearning for his late father. Interspersed with New York City facts and photographs of Houdini, this entertaining story ends, appropriately, with a touch of magic.

Here's a pod cast Dan did with his Holiday House editor, Elizabeth Law Read more...

[H]umor and tension make this an appealing page-turner... Funny, scary in the right moments, and offering plenty of historical facts.

With quick writing and dialogue and fun facts about Houdini, this is an enjoyable read, especially for those interested in Houdini's life or magic.

An amusing adventure that may well entice readers to further Houdini investigation.

The best magicians are a little like the best priests, or novelists. They may be skeptical about the trade they ply nothing tests your faith quite like knowing how the tricks are done but they're never cynical. At some level, some piece of them still wants to believe in the mystery. Harry Mancini is a fifth-grade boy who lives with his widowed mother in uptown Manhattan. Specifically, he lives at 278 West 113th Street in the very house where a century ago Harry Houdini spent the last two decades of his life. That fact, plus the similarity of their names, means that one Harry is obsessed with the other. And maybe vice versa, since magic is at the heart of Dan Gutman's new middle grade novel, "Houdini and Me." Read more...