Customer Reviews (2)

Master of Magic
This is a book about Harry Houdini.Harry Houdini grew up with four brothers and one sister. He is famous for escaping safes, handcuffs and walking on tightropes.He was introduced to magic at the age of seven.On his journey Harrry Houdini became one of the most famous magicians in the world.
Houdini performed for more than one million people in his lifetime.After his greatest trick he passed away.
I do not think this was a good book because it did not have a lot of information about Harry Houdini.Also, it did not tell when or where Harry Houdini was born.There were some confusing words.I would recommend this book as a good story but not for school use.

Good, yet sometimes confusing...
As most people know, Harry Houdini was one of the greatestmagicians and escape artists ever known.The author was pretty goodat telling his childhood story, yet sometimes it was confusing.Maybeit because I wasn't concentrating the whole time.Even though I didn't enjoy the whole book, I would still encourage people to read it. ... Read more

Book Description
Level 2: Reading Independently

• More complex stories

• Varied sentence structure

• Paragraphs and short chapters

Find out how a little boy named Ehrich Weiss became Harry Houdini -- the greatest magician the world has ever known!

... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Great introduction to an amazing character
Not too deep but thorough enough to introduce young minds to Houdini. My grandson read with much interest and now he dedicates all his magic tricks to the Great Houdini. A nice introduction to what a biography is and it captures the highlights of his career and early youth. I recommend it to all aspiring magicians and I dedicate this review to the memory of Doug Henning. ... Read more

Book Description
Every kid has heard of Harry Houdini, the famous magician who could escape from handcuffs, jail cells, and locked trunks. But do they know that the ever-ambitious and adventurous Houdini was also a famous movie star and the first pilot to fly a plane in Australia? This well-told biography is full of the details of Houdini's life that kids will really want to know about and illustrated throughout with beautiful black-and-white line drawings.

Illustrated by John O'Brien.
Cover Illustration by Nancy Harrison. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

7 year-old son LOVED it.
I read this book aloud to my 7 year-old son, and once we started, he did not want to stop. I've tried to read other biographies to him and many I have found so boring and poorly written that I dreaded finishing them. Not so with this one!This was written so as to be interesting for both children and adults.The author weaves in discussion of various historical events and figures and provides just the right amount of detail and analysis at just the right level of sophistication for elementary aged children (e.g., World War I, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Spiritualism, The Wright Brothers' first flight, etc.).He doesn't avoid difficult subjects like death, war, and poverty but at the same time maintains a reassuring tone appropriate for children.The upshot was that we both learned a lot from this book and had a great time reading it.I've now ordered 8 more books in the series and am looking forward to reading them aloud to my son. I can imagine that in a year or so he'll be reading these books on his own and using them for school reports.As an educational psychologist, I will highly recommend this series for my "reluctant readers" who often complain that reading (particularly expository text) is "boring."

my son loved it
What a great book for a kid. My third grader loved it. With houdini in the news again, and the recent movies about magicians out, it's something kids are becoming interested in again.

Harry Houdini-More than An Illusionist

If the picture on the cover is any indication, Harry Houdini is Sean Penn (there's a striking resemblance).This is an interesting book in the "Who Was" series, detailing Houdini's impoverished boyhood in America (after emigrating from Hungary), his early interest in magic, and a turning point, his discovery of a book about Jean-Eugene Robert-Houdin, the "father of modern magic."

Author Sutherland divided the book into 12 chapters, each beginning with "So you want to be a (Magician, Pilot, Hero, Detective, etc.), detailing Houdini's feats in many areas. Several of the escape illusions are briefly explained (including Houdini's great illusion making an elephant disappear!), and there's a humorous bent as the author admits that it's difficult to tell which of Houdini's many statements about himself are true!Houdini traveled from town to town, and it wasn't until he Martin Beck, head of the Orpheum Circuit's (a string of vaudeville houses), discovered Houdini that he earned international acclaim, staying five years in Europe.The book does a good job at showing how Houdini worked hard at his illusions, and how this practice (and a penchant for self-promotion) catapulted him to fame. It also emphasizes the real dangers and near disasters that Houdini faced, a far cry from today's televised illusionists.

Sutherland does a great job of providing relatively unknown information about Houdini: He was the first person to fly an airplane in Australia, his wife played an important part in his stage act, he was in five movies, and he and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (the author of the Sherlock Holmes series) debated the validity of Spiritualism (Houdini thought it was an exploitative sham).Sidebars about, for example, airplanes, movies, WWI add a historical context, During WW1, Houdini raised money for American troops, did shows for the wounded, and even taught soldiers how to escape from German handcuffs!

This is a fascinating book that teaches a lot about Houdini and his times. Sutherland doesn't talk down to his readers, and both adults and kids will learn a great deal. The book may even begin or reinforce someone's ambition to perform magic tricks and illusions. John O'Brien's small black and white illustrations add an important measure of interest. 105 pages, with sidebars, two timelines, but no index. ... Read more

Book Description
For many performers, stage life and real life are separate identities. For master illusionist Harry Houdini, the two were inextricably linked. In this widely acclaimed biography, Ruth Brandon shows how Houdini’s obsession with his own mortality drove him to create death-defying stunts that not only captivated the public but also subdued his own raging psychological demons.


As Brandon relates Houdini’s methods of escape, she asks: What was he trying to escape from? Her exploration of the psychic landscape of one of the most enduringly famous performers of the twentieth century makes for utterly fascinating reading. Brandon reveals much that is new: how Houdini invented a phantom son; why he wrote long daily letters to his wife, Bess, who lived one floor below him; his combative relations with mediums and spiritualists, including Arthur Conan Doyle; and the first full description of his fabled death. This definitive biography allows readers to peer into Houdini’s psyche and understand him more deeply than ever before. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (7)

Not worth the trouble
As a previous reviewer stated, there are plenty of other good bios of Houdini. This one is full of psychobabble and reads like character assassination. All heroes have feet of clay, but her analysis is repetitive and makes the second half of the book deathly boring.

A good book, but...
Overall, an enjoyable read, but I agree with prior reviewers -- too much Freudian analysis for my taste, and I don't care to hear the author's personal experiences.

Strongly Suggested Book
This book is good. It has many interesting facts about Houdini. It explains his life and career. I strongly suggest it.

Decent, but there are better
If you're planning on buying just one Houdini book, go with Kenneth Silverman.Although there are parts of Brandon's book which are excellent, I grew tired of her opinions and psycho-babble.Ultimately, I got thefeeling that the author simply didn't like Houdini.Perhaps I should havebeen warned when reading Brandon's bio: "She likes to think ofbiography as a framework within which to look at cultural history." Houdini was a complex person, to say the least.Personally, I'd rather bepresented with the facts so I could form my own opinion.

Good but...
I've read every biography on Harry Houdini and this one is good...but it isn't the best. (The best is Ken Silverman's Houdini!The Career of Ehrich Weiss.) Here Ruth Brandon has mined information from older Houdini bios and created a skillful patchwork. Even her much publicized (and muchmaligned) "psycho-babble" comes right out of Bernard C. Meyer'sHoudini A Mind in Chains (1976). Indeed, this excellent long out-of-printbook seems to be Ms. Brandon's Deep Throat. Her chapter relating the eventsleading up to Houdini's death is taken almost paragraph for paragraph fromthe Meyer book. And do we really need to hear about the author's ownchildhood experiences with magic? Still, it's a good read, but for aserious and truly revealing Houdini bio, go with the Silverman book. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A lively biography
A little over a hundred pages complete with index charts the story of escape artist Harry Houdini, a child of immigrant parents who entered the circus world early and became a noted magician. Black and white photos pepper Harry Houdini: Master Magician, a lively biography which explores Harry Houdini's background and achievements. ... Read more

Book Description
DK¹s acclaimed DK Biography series tackles two of history¹s most colorful figures in Harry Houdini and Albert Einstein. Perfect for book reports or summer reading, the DK Biography series brings a new clarity and narrative voice to history¹s most colorful figures. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Harry Houdini
Harry Houdini was an amazing man.He did many tricks no one would dare to do. He would risk his life for the entertainment of others. In his lifetime, he performed many memorable magic tricks. He buried himself alive and survived. He dunked his whole body head first into a huge tankand survived. He asked the police to hand cuff him and without a key was able to remove the hand cuffs. He was able to escape from straight jackets. He earned the name, "The Great Houdini." He was afraid that he would not be remembered after his death.

One day after Harry's show at a university, a student came in and asked Harry if his stomach was as strong as he said it was. Harry, not paying attention, mumbled something. The student then gave 10 blows to Harry's stomach. Harry fainted. His appendix had ruptured. He was sent to the hospital. Ten days later he died of an infected appendix. He was only 52 years old.

Today, he still inspires many magicians, such as David Blaine. His message to everyone is that if you keep on trying and doing your personal best you will be rewarded at the end.

The life of Harry Houdini, the world famous "master mystifier"
This DK Biography of Harry Houdini is described as "A photographic story of a life," but I can tell you up front that it is not a collection of photographs with captions but an illustrated biography that is comparable to other volumes put out by this company. That means you will find over 100 photographs, artwork and artifacts, including photograph of his famous escapes, posters from throughout his career, and a look at things like his collection of handcuffs. For somebody like me who knows most of what they know about Houdini from the movie with Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh (and whatever television documentaries I might stumble across from time to time), this book is quite educational. Vicki Cobb tells about the life of Harry Houdini so it reads like an American success story. Born Ehrich Weiss, the kid who will become Harry Houdini leaves home at the age of 12, gets bored working in a factory, and starts practicing coin trips in his spare time. Eventually the son of poor immigrants would be selling out the theaters of Europe as the greatest magician and escape artist in the world.

To set the stage for Houdini's life, Cobb begins with a prologue, "Failure Means a Drowning Death," that talks about his performance in St. Louis, Missouri, on January 27, 1908. Having escaped from the local police station the day before, Houdini performs his "Death-Defying Mystery: Escape from a galvanized iron can filled with water and secured by massive locks." By the time you get to the part where you wonder how he did it, Cobb has you interested in how Houdini became the greatest magician of all time. Then we get to the fact of his life, with the early chapter devoted to how the Weiss family came to America, what Show Business was like in the 1890s when Weiss got started, and how the young Houdini learned his trade as a magician and taking his name from Jean Eugene Robert-Houdin, his hero.

Cobb pays attention to how Houdini developed his career and you should pay attention to all of the posters that document his career: they start off with lots of text and hyperbole, but by the time he becomes famous as the "master mystifier" basically he just needed "HOUDINI" in large print. So Houdini goes from "Dime Museum Harry," to "The King of Handcuffs" and then the "Self-Liberator" who conquered Europe at the end of the century. Cobb highlights a quotation from Houdini: "The whole secret is getting the first hand free; after that it is all plain sailing." The glory days of Houdini cover him as a great self-promoter, but also pay attention to his family and his work as a scholar and author in the field of magic.

The final chapters looked at how Houdini started taking risks to come up with bigger thrills for his audiences by doing dangerous things like jumping into rivers and flying an airplane. This goes hand in hand with his great creativity (we get to the Water Torture Cell from the end of the movie "Houdini" at this point). The last stage of Houdini's career deals with not only his death defying feats, but also his debunking of mediums ("The Dead Don't Talk"), which became part of his legacy when he died on Halloween in 1926 from a ruptured appendix. Houdini had told his wife that if it were possible to speak to her from beyond the grave, he would do so, and for ten years his widow Bess attended seances on Halloween to hear the code they had agreed on as proof she was hearing from him. But it never came.

If you want to know how Houdini did it, then you will be happy to know several of his best-known tricks are explained (but not all of them) in this informative biography. Cobb emphasizes Houdini's showmanship as well as his creativity in being important to the act so young readers can better appreciate the career of somebody they will never see perform. The back of the book has a two-page timeline of key events in Houdini's life, a Bibliography of more than a dozen books, a Works Cited list, and six Webs ties that will provide more information about Houdini as well as a trio of documentaries about the master mystifier (he felt he was more than a magician and therefore favored this appellation). ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Houdini-His Life and Art byRandi and Sugar
This work is packed with pictures of Houdini which include
Teddy Roosevelt to a delegation of clergy at the Hippodrome.
Classic photos of Houdini are depicted in the upside down
position awaiting submersion into the water. In addition, the volume depicts famous cuffs from the "Bastille", Darbies and
flexible Lilly irons. A famous picture of Houdini emerging from
a sealed iron box is depicted at the Hotel Shelton in NYC. The
"Packing Box Escape" shows Houdini emerging from a trick submersion
at sea. The work is worth the price for Houdini enthusiasts everywhere. This work would be perfect for a class project in
history or science. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Great Photos, Fair Reprint
This book is a reprint of Christopher's "Houdini A Pictorial Life" published in 1976. Compared to the original, it's a rather poor reprint. The quality of the B&W photos are much degraded and one of theoriginal book's two color pages is now B&W (the other is missingentirely). Still, the photos in this book - many showing Houdini in action- are terrific and very rare. The original book can be hard to find andtends to sell for $30 and up. But if you're going to hunt (and pay) thenhunt down instead "Houdini His Legend and His Magic" by DougHenning. This is the best of the four "coffee table" size Houdinibooks done in the late '70s. If you're looking for a definitive Houdinibiography (more content than photos) I recommend "Houdini!TheCareer of Ehrich Weiss" by Ken Silverman.

interesting republished photos of Houdini and his life
a work of republished and copied photos of Harry. Its nice to have them all together and even some photos that are not found elsewhere.The publisher and or author would have more praise if the photos were clearerand more refined and not so dark . Some looked as if they were photocopiedout of someone elses photocopy book.... I would have liked to compare thisedition with first printing to see if there was a difference.. many otherbooks with some of the same photos show a definite clarity in reproduction.

good content...b/w illus.
excellent info on Houdini...be aware that all illus. are black/whit ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

It was Great!
My son read this book and had this to say:
"I'm a fourth grader and I was reading this for a school project.I read the book because I had to write a biography.It was GREAT.All the stuff he did, it was just fantastic.It even tells what he was doing in his spare time, where he lived, who he cared for a lot, that sort of thing.And more than just magic feats.It was AWESOME. "

Outstanding biography
Houdini is a fascinating character, and he really comes alive in SPELLBINDER. The book is extremely accessible, with tons of photos andlively, fresh writing. Houdini's life and times--everything from childlabor to the cataclysm that was World War I--are skillfully woven into thetext. One of the most interesting themes is how Houdini worked to debunkfraudulent mediums and other tricksters. Following the text are abibliography, a chronology, and an index, making the book an excellentresource for reports. But it is also just a great read. ... Read more