Mr. Mysterious & Company

by Sid Fleischman

Book Overview

A magic show is in town! See Jane float through the air. Watch the head in the box move its lips and talk (that's Paul behind the whiskers). See tall, light-hearted Mr. Mysterious--Pa himself--make a cow lay an egg and a chicken give milk. Follow the adventures and high comedy of this family of magicians traveling in a show wagon through the Old West. The wonder workers are heading for California, where Pa intends to retire the show so that the kids can go to school. But the frontier has tricks of its own up its sleeve, and the magicians find themselves in hairbreadth escapes and nose-to-nose encounters with villains galore--including the notorious and short-tempered Badlands Kid.Mr. Mysterious & Company, otherwise known as the Hackett family, is a traveling magic show making its way across the country toward California. When this family passes through town in their brightly painted wagon, anything can happen--even the capture of a notorious bandit, the Badlands Kid! Here is the Newbery Medalist's first book for children, reissued for a new generation of readers.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0316286141
• ISBN13: 9780316286145
• Release Date: January 1990
• Publisher: Joy Street Books
• Length: 151 Pages
• Weight: 0.42 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 5.0" x 7.2"
• Age Range: 9 to 12 years
• Grade Range: Grades 4 to 7

Customer Reviews

My kids love this book!

This is the story of a family that travels doing a magic act. In the late summer of 1884 they leave Texas to travel to California to start a new life. Their brightly colored red wagon with the name MR. MYSTERIOUS & COMPANY painted in foot high gold letters is meant to attract attention and it sure does work!!! One adventure along dusty trail to another exciting adventure kept my children in love with this book. The cute and whimsical illustrations by Eric von Schmidt are especially appealing. Buy this book and enjoy!!!!!

delightful!

A charming and fun book for children -great charachters, well written, a childhood favorite of mine that I've passed along to others. Part of the fun is the behind-the-scenes look at a traveling old west magic show!

The Grapes of Wrath for ten year olds.......

I once saw a talk by science fiction author Ray Bradbury, when he became exasperated with a audience member and said "The Grapes of Wrath is a great book because it's about a family!" And that's what this book is about: a family.Mr. Mysterious & Co. a family headed west, twenty years after the civil war, performing a magic stage show in small, western towns. The three children, ages 12, 9, and 6, each have their own conflicting dreams, fears and desires. But what really makes this book work is not just that it is well written, and the characters are supurb, it's that it is about a family, and some of the struggles that familes have. Jane, the oldest, wonders when she can have real friends and stop being a child. Paul, the middle child, wants to keep traveling and "having adventures." Anne, the youngest, looks forward to "settling down," and living in a town.Even though this book was written forty years ago, it still holds up well. It was one of my favorite books as a kid, and remains so today. I must have read this thirty times, and have given away at least twenty copies.If you're looking for an interesting, funny, gentle, and simply altogether charming book about the old west--this is it. ...

Mr. Mysterious and Company

My 11 year old and I both enjoyed this book. The story is set in the Old West and holds one's interest with lots of humor and suprising twists in the adventures.

Perfect for your boy

When I was in elementary school, and mostly hanging around the library shelves near Charlie's Factory and Encyclopedia Brown's garage, my librarian handed me this book, and I realized how much of the unexposed portions of the library had the potential to be this wonderful!It tells the story of a travelling magician in the old west and his family as they set out from city to city putting on shows and having the most humorus and delightful adventures along the way. Particularly for those interested in magic, it will entrance the curious and amuse those looking to be entertained.