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Summary
Summary
Què li passa al Quim? Com és que no pot entrenar amb el seu equip de futbol? Perquè no pot menjar gairebé res? Els símptomes apunten a un rebrot de la greu malaltia que pateix des de fa uns anys i ara, just quan només li falta un dia per celebrar el seu 16è aniversari, ha de començar un viatge amb un destí incert.Aquest llibre és fruit d'una experiència de creació col·lectiva, entre Víctor Panicello - autor de varies obres de narrativa juvenil - i un grup de nois i noies que formen el Consell de Joves de l'Hospital de Sant Joan de Deu. A través dels ulls d'en Quim, el protagonista d'aquest viatge, els autors miren de fer arribar als lectors les vivències i els sentiments als que s'han hagut d'afrontar. Les pors, els mals moments, però també les alegries, l'amistat i l'amor, es presenten directament, sense intermediaris, a través dels escrits del joves que les han viscut.
Summary
"Mark Twain was born fully grown, with a cheap cigar clamped between his teeth." So begins Sid Fleischman's ramble-scramble biography of the great American author and wit, who started life in a Missouri village as a barefoot boy named Samuel Clemens.
Abandoning a career as a young steamboat pilot on the Mississippi River, Sam took a bumpy stagecoach to the Far West. In the gold and silver fields, he expected to get rich quick. Instead, he got poor fast, digging in the wrong places. His stint as a sagebrush newspaperman led to a duel with pistols. Had he not survived, the world would never have heard of Tom Sawyer or Huckleberry Finn--or red-headed Mark Twain.
Samuel Clemens adopted his pen name in a hotel room in San Francisco and promptly made a jumping frog (and himself) famous. His celebrated novels followed at a leisurely pace; his quips at jet speed. "Don't let schooling interfere with your education," he wrote.
Here, in high style, is the story of a wisecracking adventurer who came of age in the untamed West; an ink-stained rebel who surprised himself by becoming the most famous American of his time. Bountifully illustrated.
Author Notes
Sid Fleischman was born in Brooklyn, New York on March 16, 1920 but grew up in San Diego, California. He loved all things magical and toured professionally as a magician until the beginning of World War II. During the war, he served in the U.S. Naval Reserve, and afterwards, he graduated from San Diego State University in 1949.
After graduation, he worked as a reporter with the San Diego Daily Journal. After the paper folded in 1950, he started writing fiction. He tried his hand at children's books because his own children often wondered what their father did. To show them how he created stories, he wrote them a book. He wrote more than 50 fiction and nonfiction works during his lifetime including The Abracadabra Kid: A Writer's Life; Escape! The Story of the Great Houdini; The Trouble Begins at 8: A Life of Mark Twain in the Wild, Wild West; The Thirteenth Floor; and The Ghost in the Noonday Sun. His book, The Whipping Boy, won the Newberry Award in 1987. He is the father of Newbery Medal winning writer and poet Paul Fleischman; they are the only father and son to receive Newbery awards.
He also wrote screenplays including Lafayette Escadrille, Blood Alley, and The Whipping Boy. He died from cancer on March 17, 2010 at the age of 90.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (6)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Starred Review. This biography of the writer who changed literature forever sets a standard few can meet: it is top-notch entertainment. Newbery Medalist Fleischman (The Whipping Boy) nearly channels Mark Twain's voice, making great use of his subject's wit to contextualize his place in American letters. Sam regarded it as akin to child abuse that his father... scraped up the funds to send him to the log schoolhouse, Fleischman writes of Samuel Clemens's boyhood in Missouri. With colorful detail, he catalogues Clemens's search for a vocation--at the print shop, on the riverboat, with the gold-diggers and, finally, at the newspaper, where he first used the pen name Mark Twain. In one illustrative example, a San Francisco theater owner suggests in 1866 that Twain give a lecture about his recent adventures in the Sandwich Islands (Hawaii), and he accepts, despite a lack of public speaking experience. He did not have a gift for caution, Fleischman notes dryly. The title is taken from the lecture's advertising posters: Doors open at 7 o'clock. The Trouble to begin at 8 o'clock. Period engravings, newspaper cartoons and b&w photographs round out this spirited portrait. Final art not seen by PW. Ages 9-12. (July) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved All rights reserved.
Booklist Review
*Starred Review* When Mark Twain first started giving speeches, the poster advertising them read, Doors open at 7. The trouble begins at 8. This is the spirit in which Fleischman writes about Twain, talking about him as an author, of course, but also as steamboat pilot, a journalist, a prospector, and a lecturer in other words, as an adventurer who didn't mind a little trouble. In keeping with this theme, Fleischman doesn't dwell on Twain's best-known books, featuring Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn, but spends most of his time on Twain's earlier years, showing how young Samuel Clemens' myriad adventures became the building blocks for his stories. With a Twainian lilt to the prose, the book mingles deftly shaped research with snippets from Twain's writings. One of Fleischman's goals is to show Twain's noted wit; today's kids, however, may not find some of Twain's writing particularly amusing, its humor disappearing in the mists of time. What will probably delight readers more are Twain's amazing exploits aboard stagecoaches and steamboats, making and losing fortunes, and trying to find his place in the world. Numerous illustrations photos, cartoons, and memorabilia and solid, well-sourced back matter add to the enjoyment, as does a sampler of Twain's work.--Cooper, Ilene Copyright 2008 Booklist
New York Review of Books Review
The fourth and final book in the Twilight Saga once again puts its heroine, Bella Swan, in overwhelming danger. But there's a bigger risk: what happens when the main characters of an epic romance get everything they want? Marriage to Edward, Bella's vampire, was a dead certainty in Book 3, so the threat to their bliss turns out to be creepy and unexpected: someone she may love more, who could kill her and bring down condemnation from the deadly Volturi clan. Over 754 pages, the answers come almost too easily, but not quickly. THE TROUBLE BEGINS AT 8 A Life of Mark Twain in the Wild, Wild West. By Sid Fleischman. Greenwillow/HarperCollins. $18.99. (Ages 9 to 12) Fleischman's illustrated biography skips along hitting the high points of Twain's life - especially his celebrated career as a Mississippi riverboat pilot, which ended with the Civil War - while fleshing out less well-known episodes, often in the writer's own words. Of course where fact ends and fiction begins is not always clear - as Twain is quoted here, "A lie well told is immortal." NEWES FROM THE DEAD By Mary Hooper, Roaring Brook. $16.95. (Ages 14 and up) In England in 1650, a young woman is found guilty of a crime and hanged. Hours later a medical student attending a planned dissection of the body sees one of the eyelids move. Based on a true story, Hooper's novel traces the story of Anne Green, who "was hanged and lived to tell the tale": somehow she was only knocked out on the scaffold. In the novel, Green is taken advantage of by the scion of local landowners and the family sets out to ruin her reputation. Her quiet, rueful voice tells half the story from the strange limbo where she finds herself on waking up; the student tells the rest. IMAGINARY MENAGERIE A Book of Curious Creatures: Poems. By Julie Larios. Illustrated by Julie Paschkis. Harcourt. $16. (Ages 6 to 9) Gouache paintings depict mythical monsters in jewel tones of red, green, yellow and blue - firebirds, mermaids, centaurs and others. The accompanying poems aim to intrigue more than inform: "I'm arrow tailed, fish scaled, a luck bringer," a dragon says. Brief endnotes expand on the folk traditions - dragons get their name from the ancient Greek, and in some tales are as small as butterflies - if only touching the surface of a fascinating subject. DOUBLE OR DIE A James Bond Adventure. By Charlie Higson. Hyperion/Disney. $16.99. (Ages 10 and up) The third "young Bond" novel revolves around codes, crosswords and ciphers as a professor turns up missing and James and his Eton friends get caught up in the case. A shadowy enemy is trying to complete "Nemesis" (in a twist, it's not a weapon; it's the world's first computer). The year is 1933, and the atmospherics, from the spires of Cambridge to an abandoned railway underneath the slums of London, are very well done. A series with a high I.Q. HERE A FACE, THERE A FACE Written and photographed by Arlene Alda. Tundra. $14.95. (Ages 4 to 8) Witty photographs pick out the "faces" all around us - a saucepan becomes a long-nosed tin man, a frizzy-headed potted plant gapes in surprise, while a knotty "old tree whistles tunes," round eyes above a round mouth. Readers will suddenly find faces everywhere they look. JULIE JUST WITNESS TO THE REVOLUTION An interview with Maying Li about her memoir for young adults, "Snow Falling in Spring," at nytimes.com/books.
School Library Journal Review
Gr 5-9-Sid Fleischmann has captured Mark Twain's colorful life in this lively biography (Greenwillow, 2008) that spans his childhood, his early years as a steamboat pilot, his time out West, and his numerous occupations, including steamboat pilot, gold prospector, and journalist. He also covers Twain's later years as well as the ups and downs in his life. Written as though it was penned by Twain, Joe Barrett's down-home, folksy delivery sounds just like a boy from Hannibal, MO. In fact, he resembles Hal Holbrook who regularly portrays Twain onstage. The conversational tone sets the stage for the dramatic moments in Twain's life. Twain's travels to the West are particularly interesting, especially the information about the origins of "The Jumping Frog of Calaveras County," the short story that made him somewhat famous and set him on the road to taking writing seriously. Twain's exploits will engage listeners, and this biography would make a nice addition to middle and high school libraries.-Joan Kindig, James Madison University, Harrisonburg, VA (c) Copyright 2012. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
The life of one of America's best-loved entertainers gets top-notch treatment in this highly enjoyable and eminently simpatico biography. Told in a vernacular worthy of the great man himself, the narrative recounts the adventures of Samuel Clemens/Mark Twain from birth through his travels in America's Wild West, switching nomenclature from Clemens to Twain as the context demands. According to Fleischman, Twain "loosened up the language for us," a fact apparent in the biographer's own delivery.To hear him tell it, Twain's accomplishments "...changed literature forever. He scraped earth under its fingernails and taught it to spit." The former magician-turned-novelist intrepidly meets the challenge of recording the life of a man who once notably said, "A lie well told is immortal," always noting when a fact or situation may or may not have actually occurred. All this makes for a more spirited and engaging biography than your average rote declaration of facts and dates. No worthier Twain bio will cross a child's path than this feisty title, filled to the brim with ample grins and sly, knowing winks. (Biography. 9-14) Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Library Journal Review
Samuel Clemens was a printer's apprentice, a steamboat captain, and a prospector before trying his hand at writing. Here is how a legendary hellraiser became one of the most celebrated men in American literature. The book's title tells how Twain advertised his early lectures: "Doors open at 7 o'clock. Trouble to begin at 8 o'clock." Something You (Probably) Didn't Know: mark twain is a steamboat term. A boat's leadsman would test the water's depth for safe passage, calling out "mark twain" if the water was 12 feet deep. Why It Is for Us: Fleischman's witty prose honors and suits his subject. It is almost as entertaining as Twain's own writing.-Angelina Benedetti, King Cty. Lib. Syst., WA (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Excerpts
Excerpts
The Trouble Begins at 8 A Life of Mark Twain in the Wild, Wild West Chapter One The Man Who Made Frogs Famous Mark Twain was born fully grown, with a cheap cigar clamped between his teeth. The event took place, as far as is known, in a San Francisco hotel room sometime in the fall of 1865. The only person attending was a young newspaperman and frontier jester named Samuel Langhorne Clemens. Who? A person of little consequence. He was a former tramp printer, Mississippi riverboat pilot, and ink-stained scribbler who'd made a small noise in the brand-new Nevada Territory. Sam, or even Sammy, as boyhood friends and relatives sometimes called him, sat in the light from the hotel window scratching out a comic story about a jumping frog contest. He'd discovered the bleached ribs of the story not far off, in the California Gold Rush foothills. He now set the tale in his native folk language. He gave the story fresh and whimsical orchestration. He made it art. He rummaged around among several pen names with which he'd amused himself in the past. Newspaper humorists, such as his friends Petroleum V. Nashby and Dan De Quille, commonly hid in the shade of absurd false fronts. Should he be Josh again? Thomas J. Snodgrass? Mark Twain? How about W. Epaminondas Blab? Mark Twain. It recalled a shouted refrain from his riverboat days, signifying a safe water depth of two fathoms, or twelve feet. He'd given the pen name a trial run on a political scribble or two, but the name had only enhanced his obscurity. He had let it molder and die. Still, he would feel cozy under the skin of a character from his beloved Mississippi River. Maybe he'd blow on its ashes and resurrect the pseudonym. With earnest decision, a possible snort, and a flourish of his pen, he signed the piece, "By Mark Twain." Nothing traveled fast in those days except the common cold. But once the celebrated frog of Calaveras County reached the East Coast and was reprinted by newspapers large and small, the nation had seizures of giggles and guffaws. The merriment spread with the swiftness of a gale-force wind. The story crossed the Atlantic Ocean, and before long the English and later the French "most killed themselves laughing" as Twain reported, falling back on his Missouri drawl. Today, we are still smiling out loud at how Smiley lost the frog-jumping contest to a stranger with a secret cache of buckshot. Mark Twain had made the overstuffed amphibian famous. At first, the creature had grabbed the spotlight exclusively for himself. The author reacted with a bilious grunt of jealousy toward his creation. Complained Twain, "It was only the frog that was celebrated. It wasn't I." But soon Mark Twain caught up, sprinting past the croaker to become the most famous American alive. And the funniest. Each chomping simultaneously on the same cigar, Sam Clemens and Mark Twain conspired to write what many regard as America's greatest novels, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and its companion The Adventures of Tom Sawyer . And that's not to mention the knockabout pages of Life on the Mississippi or the fanciful The Prince and the Pauper , a novel about two look-alikes who exchange places, with results you can imagine. An unending carnival of movies, plays, and Broadway musicals have been spun off from Mark Twain's rowdy comedies and satires. From under the author's full mustache, hanging like a rusted scimitar over his sharp quips, came an evergreen stream of wit. His sayings remain as perky today as when Twain first minted them. "Man is the only animal who blushes, or needs to," said he. "Cauliflower is nothing but cabbage with a college education." "Everybody complains about the weather, but nobody does anything about it." Not bad for a barefoot boy with a prairie fire of curly red hair who was born in Florida, a Missouri village so small that Sam remembered it as "almost invisible." Halley's comet was streaking across the sky like a chalk mark the day he was born. Seventy-five years later, it came blazing back, as if by personal invitation--the day the celebrated author snubbed out his cigar and moved in with the immortals. But there was something more remarkable afoot in Florida, Missouri, the day Sam added himself to the world's population. Destiny had searched out the obscure village of twenty-one homes for a flash of its rarest lightning--genius. Sam was struck in the funny bone. Burdened with literary imagination and originality, he grew up to snatch the dust covers and embroidered antimacassars off the novels of the day. He changed literature forever. He scraped earth under its fingernails and taught it to spit. He slipped in a subversive American sense of humor. He made laughing out loud as respectable as afternoon tea. The Trouble Begins at 8 A Life of Mark Twain in the Wild, Wild West . Copyright © by Sid Fleischman. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold. Excerpted from The Trouble Begins at 8: A Life of Mark Twain in the Wild, Wild West by Sid Fleischman All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
