Houdini Harry - Who Was Harry Houdini?

Who Was
Harry Houdini?

Who Was
Harry Houdini?

By Tui T. Sutherland
Illustrated by John OBrien

Grosset & Dunlap New York

For Cosmo and George, modern-day
magiciansTTS

For TessJOB

Text copyright 2002 by Tui T. Sutherland. Illustrations copyright 2002 by John OBrien. Cover illustration 2002 by Nancy Harrison. All rights reserved. Published by Grosset & Dunlap, a division of Penguin Young Readers Group, 345 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014. GROSSET & DUNLAP is trademark of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. Published simultaneously in Canada. Printed in the U.S.A.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Sutherland, Tui.

Who was Harry Houdini? / by Tui T. Sutherland; illustrated by John OBrien.

v. cm. (Who was ?)

Contents: So you want to be an American So you want to be a magician So you want to be famous So you want to be a star! So you want to be amazing So you want to be a pilot So you want to be a movie star! So you want to be an illusionist So you want to be a hero So you want to be a detective So you want to be remembered forever.

1. Houdini, Harry, 18741926Juvenile literature. 2. MagiciansUnited StatesBiographyJuvenile literature. 3. Escape artistsUnited StatesBiographyJuvenile literature. [1. Houdini, Harry, 18741926. 2. Magicians.] I. OBrien, John, 1953- ill. II. Title. III. Series.

GV1545.H8 S88 2002

793.8092dc21

2002004374

ISBN: 978-1-101-64005-0 25 24 23 22 21

Who was Harry Houdini?

Most people know that he was a famous magicianbut did you know that he was also a movie star, a pilot, an acrobat, and a writer?

Harry Houdini (pronounced hoo-DEE-nee) didnt even really like the word magician. He preferred to call himself an escape artist. He said he could break out of anythinghandcuffs, jail cells, straitjackets, chains, padlocked boxes, iron cages, anything! People challenged Houdini to escape from all sorts of weird things in all sorts of weird places. And he always succeeded!

Why do people still find him so fascinating? For one thing, a lot of what he did has never been done by anyone else. Many of his tricks are still mysteries. And he told so many fantastic stories about his life that sometimes its hard to know what was true and what wasnt. We also dont know why he did all the crazy and dangerous things that he did. Was it to impress people? Was it because he thought it would make him rich? Or was it because he wanted to be the best in the world at somethingand he wanted the world to know it? Harry Houdini was certainly a very talented escape artist. More importantly, he was determined. What Houdini wanted, Houdini got. And Houdini wanted attentionlots of it!

In a time before television and movies, Harry Houdini became famous all over the world. Everybody knew who he was. He made sure of that! Can you imagine somebody getting famous today without using TV, computers, or movies?

But being famous was very important to Houdiniand his dream came true. Even now, more than 75 years after his death, he is still the most famous magician who ever lived.

The year was 1886. A twelve-year-old boy stood on the platform at a train station. He was small but muscular and tough-looking, with dark hair, bright blue-grey eyes, and a frown on his face.

He was not where he meant to be.

He had hopped on a train in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, several hundred miles to the north. His plan was to get to Texaswhere he thought the train was going. Along the way, he had sent his mother a postcard.

But this was not Texas. The sign on the platform clearly said: Kansas City, Missouri. Somehow, he had ended up on the wrong train. And now here he was, hundreds of miles and several states away from Texas.

What could he do?

Hed have to make the best of it. After all, he had run away from home so he could earn more money for his family. He planned to run errands, shine shoes, do any jobs he could find. Surely he could do that just as well in Missouri as he could in Texas. So off he went to town, looking for a place to sleep.

In the years to come, this boy would travel a lot farther than Kansas City, Missouri. The nickels and dimes he planned to bring home to his family would one day be hundreds and thousands of dollars. But then, at that point, the young shoeshine boy could never have imagined that one day hed be a world-famous magician. He had trouble just earning enough money to eat!

Harry Houdinis childhood is full of stories that may or may not be true. He was born on March 24, 1874, in Budapest, Hungary. His real name was Ehrich Weiss. But during his lifetime, Harry always said his birthday was April 6, because that is what his mother told him. And sometimes he said he was born in Americadepending on which reporter he was talking to!

In those days, many people in Europe thought of America as a magical place where all their problems would be solved. Thousands came to the United States from Europe hoping to make a new start in lifeand lots of money, too. Harrys father was one of them.

His name was Mayer Samuel Weiss, and he was a rabbi, a teacher of the Jewish religion. It was hard to be a Jew living in Hungary, where people and laws treated them like second-class citizens and it was difficult to get a job. The Weiss family was very poor. Samuel thought that perhaps he could do better in America. After all, people called it the land of opportunity. So in 1876, when Ehrich was two years old, Samuel left his wife and sons in Hungary. Although he did not speak a word of English, he set off for America, on the other side of the ocean. It took him two years to save enough money to bring over his family.

Can you imagine what that trip must have been like? First, Harrys mother, Cecilia, and her four sons would have had to get from Hungary to a port city. From there they would board a ship, along with as many as two thousand other people bound for America. Big ships like these took anywhere from two weeks to two months to cross the Atlantic Ocean. The passengers had to deal with crowded conditions and limited food. For the rest of his life, Houdini hated traveling by boat.