Magic Tree House #50: Hurry Up, Houdini! (A Stepping Stone Book(TM))

the next thirty years, the two traveled all over the world together.
    I also had a great time learning more about Coney Island, New York. In its heyday in the early 1900s, Coney Island was famous for its spectacularamusement parks. The rides were unlike anything the world had ever seen. I decided to set this story in Luna Park and chose a combination of attractions from the first decade of the park’s existence.
    I think it would have been so exciting to have actually met the Houdinis and to have gone to Coney Island in the early 1900s. But the best thing about writing this book is that now I feel almost like I really did spend a summer evening in Luna Park with Bess and Harry long ago.

PREPARATION: Tear off a piece of tinfoil that will be big enough to fold around a nickel. Rub the covered coin with your thumb so that you can see a clear outline and the details of the coin underneath. Be sure to do the edges, too.
    Now carefully cut out around the coin you’ve made and
be sure
the sides show. Remove the real nickel. When you finish, the foil should look like a shiny coin.
    FACT: Hiding something in your hand is often called palming . The great magician T. Nelson Downs could palm sixty coins at one time. In one trick, he seemed to pull huge numbers of coins out of the air and dropped them loudly into a bucket .
    1. Show that you’ve got five “nickels” in your hand. Keep the fake nickel slightly hidden by the real ones.
    2. Close your hand into a fist. As you do so, crumple the tinfoil coin into a tiny ball with your thumb and push it under the other coins.
    3. Open your hand. There are only four nickels. (The fake coin is a tiny ball hidden by the other nickels.)

Coming in January 2014!
    Jack and Annie are rescued by Florence Nightingale after a scary accident!

    Meet some of the greatest heroes of all time!