Newbery Medalist Sid Fleischman died this week, a day after celebrating his 90th birthday. Sid was a speaker at the SCBWI New England Conference in 2007, where he inspired us with his words and wowed us with his stage magic. Sid was also the namesake for the Sid Fleischman Humor Award, given each year by SCBWI to honor work in the genre of humor.
Sid will be missed, but his talent lives on through such works as The Whipping Boy, The Ghost in the Midday Sun, Jim Ugly, The Abracadabra Kid, and many more, including a much-anticipated biography of Charlie Chaplin coming in April 2010 from Greenwillow.