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Summary: CHARMING, WITTY, and MAGICAL... THE ABRACADABRA KID
Review: CHARMING, WITTY, and MAGICAL... THE ABRACADABRA KID, A WRITERS LIFE Newbery award winner, Sid Fleischman is surprised that he grew up to be a writer. " I had a childhood much like everyone else's," he writes. " What went wrong?" Sid Fleischman had a childhood that was not so typical after all. He grew up during the Great Depression with his best friend, named Buddy. Born to Russian immigrant parents, Sid enjoyed life with his three siblings. In fifth grade Sid decided to become a magician much to his fathers dislike. He taught himself magic tricks from library books and became known in his hometown of San Diego, as the Abracadabra Kid. Read and feel Sid's sadness as he tells you about the horrors of battle during World War II. Serving his country in the U.S. Navy, he finds good in everything. Sid loved to fish and spend time with his Spanish girlfriend any time he could, while off duty in the Navy. Sid Fleischman's writing career began after the war with an unsuccessful 250-page mystery. Working hard to correct and rewrite his mystery paid off with a winner. And thus began his writing career. Travel with Sid as he retells his charming life's story, in the Abracadabra Kid. Enjoy his wit and ups and downs of his successful life.
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Summary: CHARMING, WITTY, and MAGICAL... THE ABRACADABRA KID
Review: CHARMING, WITTY, and MAGICAL... THE ABRACADABRA KID, A WRITERS LIFE Newbery award winner, Sid Fleischman is surprised that he grew up to be a writer. " I had a childhood much like everyone else's," he writes. " What went wrong?" Sid Fleischman had a childhood that was not so typical after all. He grew up during the Great Depression with his best friend, named Buddy. Born to Russian immigrant parents, Sid enjoyed life with his three siblings. In fifth grade Sid decided to become a magician much to his fathers dislike. He taught himself magic tricks from library books and became known in his hometown of San Diego, as the Abracadabra Kid. Read and feel Sid's sadness as he tells you about the horrors of battle during World War II. Serving his country in the U.S. Navy, he finds good in everything. Sid loved to fish and spend time with his Spanish girlfriend any time he could, while off duty in the Navy. Sid Fleischman's writing career began after the war with an unsuccessful 250-page mystery. Working hard to correct and rewrite his mystery paid off with a winner. And thus began his writing career. Travel with Sid as he retells his charming life's story, in the Abracadabra Kid. Enjoy his wit and ups and downs of his successful life.
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Summary: The Abracadabra Kid Rate
Review: Do you want to become a writer? Here's how. First become a magician, then travel the high seas, drop into a reporter's job and start having a family. Once done write a few screen plays and use your kids to critique your work. Does the above sound unbelievable? Yes indeed, except that it is true. Sid Fleischman did live such a life and now is sharing it with his fans. You will enjoy this entertaining autobiography of one of america's famous children's authors. Sid's life is a fantasy of adventure and excitement as you see how he becomes an author. It was not intentional and took a long time but it was worth it in the end. Enjoy his life story filled with unexpected escapades and happenings over his illustrious career. He share with us his family and their crazyness and keeps us entertained. You will enjoy his life and his telling of how his characters were born.
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Summary: THE MAGIC OF BECOMING A WRITER
Review: Do you want to become a writer? Here's how. First become a magician, then travel the high seas, drop into a reporter's job and start having a family. Once done write a few screen plays and use your kids to critique your work. Does the above sound unbelievable? Yes indeed, except that it is true. Sid Fleischman did live such a life and now is sharing it with his fans. You will enjoy this entertaining autobiography of one of america's famous children's authors. Sid's life is a fantasy of adventure and excitement as you see how he becomes an author. It was not intentional and took a long time but it was worth it in the end. Enjoy his life story filled with unexpected escapades and happenings over his illustrious career. He share with us his family and their crazyness and keeps us entertained. You will enjoy his life and his telling of how his characters were born.
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Summary: Not just for kids
Review: I was surprised to see that a reviewer called this a book that could teach kids how to write. Of course it can, but it can teach *anyone* of any age how to be a better writer. Sid Fleischman's sweet, gentle humor shines through on every page. His advice to aspiring magicians, authors, parents, human beings in general is so sound and so commonsensical that at first it seems simplistic. It isn't. Nothing he advises is obvious; it's just that he expresses it so well and it makes so much sense that his words slip into your work and make it, and you, better.
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Summary: A writer's life.
Review: Sid Fleischman started out a child magician. His first book was a book of magic tricks, but since then he's written screen plays and several children's books, and even been the recipient of the prestigious Newbery Award for "The Whipping Boy," 1987. Sid's son Paul has also broken into the world of children's writing and written award winning books of his own, "Joyful Noise: Poems for Two Voices," 1989 among others. The "Abracadabra Kid" is an amusing autobiography written in a direct way, putting free speech on paper. Mostly it's a life story, but Fleischman does offer advice to aspiring authors. A lot of his growth as a writer has been in learning to develop plot. "Daily life doesn't often help. It rarely delivers us three acts ready to write. The author needs to rearrange the furniture, putting random story elements in some sort of dramatic alignment (p. 82)." That was chapter 19. By chapter 43, the final chapter, Fleischman writes, "Now I can sit at my desk without an idea in my head and, like a palming trick, produce a rough plot. I suppose that skill is one of the marks of a professional (p.194)." Sid Fleischman has learned a lot throughout his life as a magician, in the navy, as a newspaper reporter, and fiction writer. He shares his memories, encounters, photographs and writer's wisdom in this humorous autobiography. At least he didn't embrace the "wit Fred Allen who didn't know why anyone would spend a year or two writing a novel when you can easily buy one for a few dollars (p. 83)."
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Summary: The Abracadabra Kid Rate
Review: This book shows basically all of Sid Fleischman's career life. This is from when he was a boy to now. In his first career he wanted to be a magician, and that's what this book is mainly about.
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