Sid Fleischman
| Sid Fleischman | |
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| Born | Avron Zalmon Fleischman March 16, 1920 Brooklyn, New York, USA |
| Died | March 17, 2010 (aged 90) Santa Monica, California, USA |
| Occupation | Writer, illusionist |
| Nationality | American |
| Education | B.A., English |
| Alma mater | San Diego State University |
| Genre | Children's literature, comic novels |
| Subject | Stage magic |
| Notable awards |
Newbery Medal 1987 Horn Book Award 1979 |
| Spouse | Betty Taylor (c. 1952, d. 1993) |
| Children |
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| Website | |
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Albert Sidney Fleischman (March 16, 1920 – March 17, 2010), or Sid Fleischman, was an American author of children's books, screenplays, novels for adults, and nonfiction books about magic. His works for children are known for their humor, imagery, zesty plotting, and exploration of the byways of American history. He won the Newbery Medal in 1987 for The Whipping Boy and the Boston Globe–Horn Book Award in 1979 for Humbug Mountain. For his career contribution as a children's writer he was U.S. nominee for the biennial, international Hans Christian Andersen Award in 1994. In 2003, the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators inaugurated the Sid Fleischman Award in his honor, and made him the first recipient. The Award annually recognizes a writer of humorous fiction for children or young adults. He told his own tale in The Abracadabra Kid: A Writer's Life (1996).
Fleischman was born Avron Zalmon Fleischman in Brooklyn, New York in 1920. His parents were of Russian Jewish extraction and moved the family to San Diego, California when Fleischman was two years old. As a youngster, he beheld his first stage magic performance, launching a lifelong fascination, that would find a place in many of unclassical books of his. He learned magic from books and the local fraternity of magicians, inventing new tricks along the way. He began performing professionally while still in high school, touring California with his friend Buddy Ryan, performing in nightclubs, and traveling the country with the Francisco Spook Show during the last days. He settled in Santa Monica, CA.
At 19, Fleischman published his first book, Between Cocktails, a collection of magic tricks using paper matches. His college career at San Diego State College was interrupted by World War II, during which he served on a destroyer escort in the Pacific. After the war, he tried his hand at fiction for the first time, publishing his first novel, a mystery entitled The Straw Donkey Case. After graduating with a degree in English, he worked as a reporter for the short lived newspaper The San Diego Daily Journal, covering everything from crime scenes to the political beat. Drawing on his reporting experiences, his knowledge of magic, and his tour of the Pacific, he produced a series of novels of intrigue and adventure over the next 15 years, many set in the Far East. After decades out of print, several have been lately reprinted in two-books-in-one format by Stark House Press.
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