Alice Cary

Children's & YAPicture Book

Snail Crossing

Review by Alice Cary

When Snail spots “a field of plump, crisp cabbage just across the road,” he’s jubilant, knowing it’s his lucky day. Proclaiming himself “cabbage bound,” he sets off on a slow but steady journey toward an eventual feast in Corey R. Tabor’s sparkling picture book, Snail Crossing.

Every sluggish step of Snail’s quest is filled with humor. While making his way across the asphalt, Snail encounters a variety of dangers (vehicles!) and characters that keep the tempo moving. Meanwhile, Snail’s single-minded determination and utter obliviousness to obstacles is utterly endearing. Tabor’s dialogue (“Well, you won’t stop me!”) and word choice add to the fun, with Snail shouting “Evasive maneuvers! Evasive maneuvers” and traveling in spiraling circles when he spots a ravenous crow.

Who knew that a gastropod’s facial expression could be so doggone cute? Or that the silhouettes of “a troop of rowdy ants” could be so animated? Tabor’s mixed media illustrations add color and texture to everything from a flower stem to the slimy path that Snail leaves in his wake. Scenes illustrated from Snail’s lowly perspective will charm and amuse readers. Tabor adds delightful touches everywhere, especially when Snail welcomes those raucous ants into his cozy shell, which turns out to be replete with armchairs, teacups and a kitchen range.

As Snail marches toward his cabbage destiny, he encounters many twists, turns and a major setback, but that’s when those rollicking ants come to the rescue, turning Snail’s single-minded adventure into a story about kindness and cooperation.

Snails may be notoriously slow, but Corey R. Tabor’s Snail Crossing is one lively tale.

When Snail spots “a field of plump, crisp cabbage just across the road,” he’s jubilant, knowing it’s his lucky day. Proclaiming himself “cabbage bound,” he sets off on a slow but steady journey toward an eventual feast in Corey R. Tabor’s sparkling picture book, Snail Crossing. Every sluggish step of Snail’s quest is filled with […]
Children's & YAMiddle Grade

Chirp

Review by Alice Cary

Crickets, anyone?

During the summer after seventh grade, Mia Barnes and her parents move from Boston to Vermont to be near her Gram, a retired entomology professor who is recovering from a stroke and running her own business, Green Mountain Cricket Farm. After a series of alarming mishaps, Mia becomes convinced that someone is trying to sabotage the farm, so she and some new friends decide to track down the culprit. Fascinating details about cricket farming (think Thai cricket pizza and chocolate chirp cookies) dovetail nicely with Mia’s mystery, which grows increasingly urgent as it threatens to destroy Gram’s beloved enterprise.

Chirp, Kate Messner’s latest middle grade novel, is a delightful hodgepodge of a book. It’s expertly organized and seamlessly pulls together a variety of intriguing themes in a truly organic way. Mia, like Gram, is also recovering, having badly broken her arm during a gymnastics competition. And she’s nursing an even more invasive, invisible wound that she hasn’t told anyone about: Phil, one of her gymnastic coaches, touched her inappropriately on several occasions, repeatedly holding her too close and too long, as well as texting her to ask for a photo. This disturbing experience has robbed Mia of her confidence and forced her into the habit of trying to remain invisible. Even though Phil is no longer a threat, she realizes, “Once you got in the habit of being small, it was hard to feel safe being your normal size anymore.”

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Read our Q&A with Chirp author Kate Messner.

At her parents’ insistence, Mia enrolls in two summer camps, one for her body (a ninja warrior-style camp) and one for her brain (a young entrepreneurs program). Warrior Camp helps Mia regain her mental confidence and physical strength, while Launch Camp gives Mia innovative ideas about how to make Gram’s cricket farm a success. In Messner’s skilled hands, even business camp becomes exciting, and her sensitive, subtle prose beautifully captures Mia’s thoughts, feelings and actions.

For readers who haven’t experienced anything like what Phil does to Mia, Chirp is an excellent introduction to the difficult but necessary subject, and to the warning signs that are sometimes present. For readers who can personally relate to Mia’s experience, Chirp could well be a lifesaver. Mia eventually finds the courage to tell an understanding adult about her trauma; soon after, she also informs her mother about Phil’s behavior, which launches an investigation. Chockfull of strong female role models, Chirp is a riveting middle grade novel of empowerment that deftly tackles a delicate, imperative subject. Crickets may chirp, but readers will be ready to roar.

Crickets, anyone? During the summer after seventh grade, Mia Barnes and her parents move from Boston to Vermont to be near her Gram, a retired entomology professor who is recovering from a stroke and running her own business, Green Mountain Cricket Farm. After a series of alarming mishaps, Mia becomes convinced that someone is trying […]
Nonfiction

When Time Stopped

Review by Alice Cary

Ariana Neumann formed a spy club with her friends. During that time she discovered a mysterious box belonging to her father, a prosperous industrialist who emigrated from Eastern Europe. The box contained an ID card bearing the official stamp of Adolf Hitler. Her father’s youthful photo was also on the card, but the name and birthday printed there weren’t his. It frightened Neumann, and she never saw the box again until her father’s death in 2001, when he left it for her to find. 

“I spent my childhood willing a mystery to come my way,” Neumann writes. “When it finally did, it took decades to solve.” Her father rarely, if ever, discussed World War II or his childhood in Czechoslovakia. During an isolated trip to Prague together, he tersely told her, “Sometimes you have to leave the past where it is—in the past.” Luckily for readers, Neumann ignored her father’s admonition and shares the results of her meticulous research in a brilliantly heart-wrenching memoir, When Time Stopped: A Memoir of My Father’s War and What Remains.

In 1939, 34 members of Neumann’s family lived in Czechoslovakia; only two, her father and his brother, escaped being transported to concentration camps. Her paternal grandparents died at Auschwitz, while her father hid in a secret compartment in their family’s paint factory, which had been taken over by Nazis. Later, as his presence there grew increasingly dangerous, he went to Berlin in a daring move, assumed the identity of a non-Jewish Czech citizen and worked in a factory that produced polymer coatings for Nazi aircraft and missiles. There he began spying for the Allies, noting, “Hunted by the Gestapo, I had come to the center of their world.”

As Neumann learns about her father’s dramatic past, she comes to better understand his reluctance to speak of it, his recurring screaming nightmares and his obsession with watches, clocks and timekeeping. “I have found the family who was never spoken about,” she writes, “the one who was not so much forgotten as veiled in silence.”

When Time Stopped is filled with heartbreaking, spine-tingling stories. But Neumann’s treasure trove of personal history isn’t solely responsible for the book’s appeal: she’s a gifted, visceral writer as well, bringing each character alive as they experience the horrors of World War II. When Time Stopped is a notable new memoir not to be missed.

Ariana Neumann formed a spy club with her friends. During that time she discovered a mysterious box belonging to her father, a prosperous industrialist who emigrated from Eastern Europe. The box contained an ID card bearing the official stamp of Adolf Hitler. Her father’s youthful photo was also on the card, but the name and […]
YA FictionYA

Dark and Deepest Red

Review by Alice Cary

As high school student Rosella Oliva rekindles a friendship with her childhood friend Emil, she notes how “in his house, fairy tales were neither just the sparkle of fairy lights nor blood on glass slippers. They were beautiful and dangerous all at once, the glossed candy red of a poison apple.”

Indeed, in Dark and Deepest Red, Anne-Marie McLemore’s riveting retelling of Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Red Shoes,” a fairy tale seems to have possessed Rosella, who belongs to a Mexican American family of shoemakers. During her town’s annual autumn week known as the Glimmer, when mysterious things always happen, a pair of red shoes suddenly attach themselves to Rosella’s feet, making her dance wildly and igniting her passion for Emil.

Emil, the son of two history professors, tries to avoid history at all costs, while keeping his own Romani heritage secret from fear of hateful repercussions. Nonetheless, his family’s past seems to be “reaching across five centuries to grab hold of him” as he begins having visions of a young woman in medieval Strasbourg. That young woman is Lavinia, who finds herself in the midst of Strasbourg’s 1518 dancing plague. Romance blossoms between orphaned Lavinia, who is also Romani, and Alifair, a trans boy her aunt has taken in. As Rosella and Emil try to navigate these strange events, they both begin to realize that Rosella “was the girl the red shoes had come for, and that some thread of the dancing plague had come back for.”

McLemore skillfully weaves together these parallel medieval and modern tales in alternating chapters. The resulting novel is not only fascinating but one that seamlessly and thoughtfully explores themes of heritage, prejudice and sexual identity while racing toward its tension-laced yet satisfying ending.

In a powerful author’s note, McLemore, who identifies as nonbinary and whose husband is trans, writes, “Girls like me were here five hundred years ago. So were boys like the one alongside me right now. Much has changed in five hundred years. And so much has held. Both the good in the human heart, and the vicious insistence on finding someone to blame.”

Dark and Deepest Red’s provocative, insightful collision of fairy tale and history is a powerful demonstration of McLemore’s immense talent.

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Read our interview with Anna-Marie McLemore.

As high school student Rosella Oliva rekindles a friendship with her childhood friend Emil, she notes how “in his house, fairy tales were neither just the sparkle of fairy lights nor blood on glass slippers. They were beautiful and dangerous all at once, the glossed candy red of a poison apple.” Indeed, in Dark and […]
Children's & YAMiddle Grade

From the Desk of Zoe Washington

Review by Alice Cary

On her 12th birthday, just after her “dream birthday party” at a local bakery, Zoe Washington gets an unexpected letter from the father she’s never met. Marcus Johnson has long been in prison for the murder of a young woman who had been a friend of his. Zoe knows her mother and stepfather wouldn’t approve, but she secretly begins writing back in From the Desk of Zoe Washington, Janae Marks’ engaging debut.

Zoe’s instincts prove right, because it turns out that Marcus has been writing to Zoe for years, and her mother has been intercepting his communications. Immediately intrigued, Zoe is surprised at how kind, smart and concerned her father seems; he calls her “Little Tomato” after a jazz song and sends her a playlist of his favorite songs. Eventually, Zoe inquires about his crime, and Marcus declares his innocence, claiming that his public defender never bothered to track down an alibi that would have exonerated him.

Zoe finds a helpful ally in her maternal grandmother, who remembers Marcus and thinks “he is a good person at heart.” Grandma believes that Marcus and Zoe have a right to communicate, so she offers to serve as an adult intermediary. Their allegiance is warm and believable; it’s particularly touching when Grandma facilitates Zoe’s first phone conversation with her father.

Unbeknownst to her grandmother, Zoe is determined to track down Marcus’ alibi, and the uncertainty of her quest—along with Marks’ crisp writing and Zoe’s likable first-person narration—makes for page-turning reading. The resolution of Zoe’s investigation comes a bit too easily, but her gradual awakening to the problem of racial injustice for black people like Marcus serves as an excellent introduction for young readers to the pervasive issue.

Marks also includes parallel narratives that help round out the plot, such as Zoe’s desire to enter a “Kids Bake Challenge!” on the Food Network and a misunderstanding between Zoe and her next-door neighbor, Trevor, who aids Zoe in her sleuthing. Zoe and Trevor’s friendship troubles offer valuable insights into how easily relationships can be unintentionally damaged.

Never heavy-handed, Marks’ prose is as sweet as one of Zoe’s confections. And as the icing on the cake, From the Desk of Zoe Washington imparts important lessons about judging other people, whether by the color of their skin or by their presumed guilt or innocence.

On her 12th birthday, just after her “dream birthday party” at a local bakery, Zoe Washington gets an unexpected letter from the father she’s never met. Marcus Johnson has long been in prison for the murder of a young woman who had been a friend of his. Zoe knows her mother and stepfather wouldn’t approve, […]
NonfictionMemoir

Hill Women

Review by Alice Cary

As a child, Cassie Chambers spent many nights with her grandparents and aunt deep in the mountains of Owsley County, Kentucky, because her young parents were university students who couldn’t afford day care. “I was at peace in this holler in the hills,” Chambers writes, describing the time she spent helping her family of tobacco sharecroppers while her parents earned degrees at Berea College.

Destined to be compared to Hillbilly Elegy and Educated, Hill Women: Finding Family and a Way Forward in the Appalachian Mountains is a quietly moving, powerful memoir in which Chambers shares her family’s story while praising the fortitude, intelligence and strength of Appalachian women. Unlike Tara Westover’s parents in Educated, Chambers’ parents deeply understood education’s importance, imbuing Chambers with a fierce drive that led her to Yale College, the Yale School of Public Health, the London School of Economics and Harvard Law School. She recounts moments of homesickness and feeling like an outsider, such as when her mother expressed concern about her spending habits at Yale, and Chambers shamefully told her, “You don’t understand. Everyone has a Burberry scarf.” 

Ultimately, Chambers returned to Kentucky to practice law and help domestic violence survivors, often meeting clients in gas stations, Dairy Queens and other fast-food restaurants. She notes that this experience has been “a powerful reminder about the importance of telling women’s stories” and that “when given the right tools, support, and environment, these women are capable of changing the world.” Chambers has also ventured into politics since returning to Kentucky. She became the vice chair of the Kentucky Democratic Party, admitting that “after November 2016, I realized in a whole new way that elections mattered. It wasn’t enough to save the world one family at a time.”

Never didactic or dull, Chambers is particularly skillful at sharing her family’s narrative while weaving in facts and commentary about Appalachian sociology, education, health, economics and politics. Most of all, the author’s love and respect for her Granny (married at age 15 to a man she had known for a few months), mother (married at 18, the first in her family to graduate high school or college) and Aunt Ruth (an independent woman who married in her 40s) shine through, brightening each page like a welcoming front porch light.

In this age of political divisions, Hill Women offers a loving, luminous look at an often misunderstood and undervalued segment of our society.

 

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Read our interview with Cassie Chambers, author of Hill Women.

As a child, Cassie Chambers spent many nights with her grandparents and aunt deep in the mountains of Owsley County, Kentucky, because her young parents were university students who couldn’t afford day care. “I was at peace in this holler in the hills,” Chambers writes, describing the time she spent helping her family of tobacco […]
Children's & YAPicture Book

The Shortest Day

Review by Alice Cary

Years ago, Susan Cooper wrote a beloved poem that has remained a mainstay of John Langstaff’s phenomenal theatrical production Christmas Revels, performed each year across the country (see it if you can!). Now transformed into a picture book, The Shortest Day is a joyful and timeless celebration of the winter solstice that will surely become a classic.

Even very young children will enjoy Cooper’s splendid, stately words: “And everywhere down the centuries of the snow-white world / Came people singing, dancing, / To drive the dark away.” The multitalented, Caldecott Honor-winning Carson Ellis (Du Iz Tak?) is the perfect illustrator for this project, using muted colors to accentuate the changing interplay between the sun and surrounding darkness. Beginning with a scene of prehistoric people and a godlike sun figure walking the earth, Ellis echoes the sweep of ages so prevalent in Cooper's poem, showing a progression of people and homes, ending with a modern house and children. In a helpful author’s note, Cooper explains both solstice celebrations and the evolution of her poem. In her words, “Welcome Yule!”

Years ago, Susan Cooper wrote a beloved poem that has remained a mainstay of John Langstaff’s phenomenal theatrical production Christmas Revels, performed each year across the country (see it if you can!). Now transformed into a picture book, The Shortest Day is a joyful and timeless celebration of the winter solstice that will surely become […]
Children's & YAPicture Book

Between Us and Abuela: A Family Story from the Border

Review by Alice Cary

Between Us and Abuela: A Family Story From the Border is a poignant story set at the wall separating Tijuana and San Diego.

Young María and her little brother are traveling with their mother by bus. Their destination is an annual day when Border Patrol officials allow groups of people to gather in an area called the enforcement zone to talk and touch fingertips with those on the other side of the border. María and her family are going to see their Abuela, whom they haven’t seen for five years. “For a moment,” María notes, “the fences are invisible”—until she realizes her brother can’t give Abuela the drawing he made for her.

Mitali Perkins’ story is a perfect introduction for children to how borders separate families, delicately embracing the reunion’s joy and enduring sadness. Sara Palacios’ illustrations cheerfully capture the love among separated families as well as the realities of the border wall.

This superb picture book is a holiday story that deserves to be a year-round read.

Between Us and Abuela: A Family Story From the Border is a poignant story set at the wall separating Tijuana and San Diego. Young María and her little brother are traveling with their mother by bus. Their destination is an annual day when Border Patrol officials allow groups of people to gather in an area […]
Children's & YAPicture Book

Dasher

Review by Alice Cary

Collectors of Christmas tales mustn’t miss Dasher, Matt Tavares’ exhilarating chronicle of how Santa went from a single horse to a team of flying reindeer pulling his sleigh. Determined Dasher is the star of this show, escaping from a difficult life in a traveling circus and doggedly finding her way to the North Pole.

Tavares excels at Christmas stories (Red & Lulu, The Gingerbread Pirates), and young readers are apt to inhale every word of this yarn. As an illustrator, Tavares is a master of dramatic light, emotion and mood, as well as deep, vibrant color, whether he’s depicting Dasher’s family penned in at the circus or Santa’s sleigh magically lifting up into the air.

Dasher is sure to join the stacks of enduring Christmas favorites read by families year after year.

Collectors of Christmas tales mustn’t miss Dasher, Matt Tavares’ exhilarating chronicle of how Santa went from a single horse to a team of flying reindeer pulling his sleigh. Determined Dasher is the star of this show, escaping from a difficult life in a traveling circus and doggedly finding her way to the North Pole. Tavares […]
NonfictionHistoryBiography

Mobituaries

Review by Alice Cary

For Mo Rocca, a great obituary “can feel like a movie trailer for an Oscar-winning biopic, leaving the reader breathless.” The CBS correspondent adores them so much that he has crafted his own form, which he calls “mobituaries”—“an appreciation for someone who didn’t get the love she or he deserved the first time around.”

In his book Mobituaries: Great Lives Worth Living, and in his podcast by the same name, Rocca presents his research about celebrities (Sammy Davis Jr.), historical figures (Thomas Paine, Herbert Hoover), relatives of the famous (Billy Carter, the president’s brother) and forgotten figures (conjoined twins Chang and Eng Bunker, or Vaughn Meader, whose comedic career impersonating JFK came to an abrupt end on November 22, 1963) who deserve re-remembering.

For example, in one essay, Rocca notes that Michael Jackson died on the same day as Farrah Fawcett. But because the King of Pop’s death overshadowed hers, Rocca turns his attention to the beloved actress, chronicling the smart, courageous person underneath Fawcett’s iconic hair, tan and perfect teeth.

Several essays aren’t even about people. For instance, he writes about the death of station wagons and the end of homosexuality being defined as a mental illness. “Death of a Tree” chronicles the odd saga of a rabid University of Alabama football fan who poisoned two live oak trees that stood at the symbolic heart of rival Auburn University. Rocca tracked down the tree killer, who served time in prison, and the result is a fascinating study of a sports rivalry and over-the-top fandom.

Down-to-earth and likable, Rocca is always entertaining and often funny, admitting, for instance, that “the only real downside to the premise of this book is that I can’t write about Barbra Streisand. Because, as we all know, she’s immortal.” Instead, he writes about Fannie Brice, whom Streisand played in Funny Girl. Rocca’s heart is often on his sleeve, as when writing about Audrey Hepburn, whom he once caught a glimpse of in Macy’s when he worked there selling perfume. He remembers that when she “floated through, the whole floor became very quiet, as though the world itself momentarily came to a stop.” He writes a moving tribute to his father, who taught him to love obituaries and instilled within him a deep sense of compassion.

Much of the great fun here is this book’s smorgasbord style— its wide-ranging scope of subjects combined with Rocca’s folksy storytelling. Mobituaries may seem to focus on death, but the book’s real heart is Rocca’s lively sense of joy and wonder.

For Mo Rocca, a great obituary “can feel like a movie trailer for an Oscar-winning biopic, leaving the reader breathless.” The CBS correspondent adores them so much that he has crafted his own form, which he calls “mobituaries”—“an appreciation for someone who didn’t get the love she or he deserved the first time around.” In […]
Children's & YAMiddle Grade

A Talent for Trouble

Review by Alice Cary

How do you deal with a beloved parent who repeatedly fails you? That’s the question facing 11-year-old Alice Mistlethwaite in Natasha Farrant’s adventurous tale for middle grade readers, A Talent for Trouble. 

Alice’s adoring mother dies, and her animated but n’er-do-well father is largely absent, prompting her Aunt Patience to sell the family estate and send Alice off to Stormy Loch Academy in the wilds of Scotland. Of her bookish, solitary niece who is always writing stories, Patience says, “She needs a new story—not to write, to live.”

Indeed, Alice finds just that, in a setup reminiscent of Harry Potter, complete with a wee hint of magic. There’s a lonely train ride to a new school; a patient, all-knowing headmaster (a collector of “lost souls” and “waifs”); and a trio of new friends who slowly discover their own talents and power for friendship. Alice is thrown together with athletic Jesse and genius Fergus as they enter the school’s Great Orienteering Challenge, using it as an excuse to embark on their own dangerous mission. The story really takes off when the three students set out on their secret quest to meet Alice’s father, Barney Mistlethwaite, who seems to be in trouble. Their adventure results in a memorable showdown.

British author Farrant keeps the tone jaunty and light, often addressing readers directly with both warnings and reassurances. Amid great danger and excitement, Alice learns to stand up for herself and confront her father’s neglect. An old-fashioned tale that tackles a timeless concern, A Talent for Trouble is full of daring exploits and essential lessons.

How do you deal with a beloved parent who repeatedly fails you? That’s the question facing 11-year-old Alice Mistlethwaite in Natasha Farrant’s adventurous tale for middle grade readers, A Talent for Trouble.  Alice’s adoring mother dies, and her animated but n’er-do-well father is largely absent, prompting her Aunt Patience to sell the family estate and […]
Science Fiction & FantasyFiction

The Starless Sea

Review by Alice Cary

As graduate student Zachary Ezra Rawlins contemplates which book to choose in his university library, he muses that reading a novel “is like playing a game where all the choices have been made for you ahead of time by someone who is much better at that particular game.” That’s certainly the case when the author in question is Erin Morgenstern, who mesmerized readers with her breakout debut, The Night Circus, and now returns with her highly anticipated second novel, The Starless Sea, a grand fantasy about books, the power of literature and storytelling.

The mysterious book Zachary ends up choosing features him as a character and leads him on an epic quest, first to the Algonquin Hotel Annual Literary Masquerade in New York City and ultimately through a secret doorway to a subterranean realm where he finds pirates, an Owl King, fairy tales, a story sculptor and “an underground trove of books and stories beneath their feet.” Think Harry Potter for book lovers and grown-ups. (Zachary’s favorite drink is a sidecar, and he falls in love during his adventures.) There are literary references galore, as well as an undertone of video games. “Is that Zelda for Princess or Fitzgerald?” Zachary asks at one point. The response he receives: “Little bit of both.” 

Paralleling Susan Orlean’s The Library Book, a nonfiction ode to books, libraries and librarians, The Starless Sea is a fictional journey dedicated to stories and storytelling. Both are lively, inventive titles chock-full of book-centric quotes.

This hefty novel requires imaginary leaps and careful attention to stories and characters that wind their way in many different directions, but Morgenstern—now proving not once, but twice, what an adept literary juggler she is—manages to weave a multitude of strands together into one mighty, magical tale.

 

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Read our interview with Erin Morgenstern for The Starless Sea.

Erin Morgenstern—proving once again what an adept literary juggler she is—weaves a multitude of stories together into one mighty, magical tale.
NonfictionBiography

The Life and Afterlife of Harry Houdini

Review by Alice Cary

The Life and Afterlife of Harry Houdini is hardly a typical biography; it’s more like taking an up-close-and-personal tour of the escape artist’s life, narrated not only by author Joe Posnanski in his wonderfully entertaining prose but also by a host of colorful experts whom the author tracks down.

Posnanski says he was drawn to the legendary escape artist because he “sparks so much wonder in the world, even today.” Modern magicians seem to concur that, technically speaking, Houdini wasn’t a particularly good magician. However, crowds were mesmerized by his escapes and were convinced he could do the impossible. The great actress Sarah Bernhardt was so gobsmacked that she asked if Houdini could restore her missing leg.

The truth of the matter is that Houdini was a charismatic, brilliant entertainer who was obsessed with fame. This publicity genius was ruthless against critics and competitors and could not for the life of him ignore an insult. He loved making money but wore tattered clothes, preferring to spend his money on self-promotion, magic books and paraphernalia.

Even today, Houdini “lives on because people will not let him die,” Posnanski writes. He introduces readers to a variety of Houdini’s modern disciples, such as Kristen Johnson, “Lady Houdini,” who says that after she tried her first rope escape, “she felt alive in a whole different way.” Magician David Copperfield takes Posnanski on a tour of his private museum in Las Vegas, discussing his predecessor’s influence. Australian magician Paul Cosentino admits, “I guess . . . he saved my life. Little boys like me, we need Houdini, you know? He’s a symbol of hope.” As Posnanski concludes, “Houdini is not a figure of the past. He is a living, breathing, and modern phenomenon.”

When a talented writer like Posnanski tackles a subject as endlessly fascinating as Harry Houdini, the results are, quite simply, pure magic.

Hardly a typical biography, this book feels like taking an up-close-and-personal tour of the escape artist’s life, as told by author Joe Posnanski in his wonderfully entertaining prose and through the voices of a host of colorful experts he tracks down.

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