Saving Houdini

Dashiel Woolf is eager to meet Harry Houdini, the famous escape artist, not long before the magician dies in 1926. Dash, however, is preoccupied with a different goal: getting back to his own time, which is eighty-five years ahead.

A magic trick goes disastrously wrong and hurls Dash into the past. He soon teams up with Walt, a boy with a reputation for mischief, and the two plot a way to send Dash home. Their scheme could stop Houdini from taking part in the event that will end his life, and the consequences for history are impossible to predict.

Michael Redhill, a Canadian novelist, gives the story a playful, fast-moving plot. The book was a finalist for the Silver Birch Award.