was a successful suspense novelist and screenwriter whose credits included the screenplay for his novel “Blood Alley” when he decided to write a book that his children could read so they would understand what it was he did at home all day.
“I seem to have written a children’s book,” Fleischman wrote to his agent in New York. “If you’re not interested, just drop it in the waste basket.”
The 1962 lighthearted tale of an Old West traveling magician and his family, “Mr. Mysterious & Company,” sold to the first publishing house that read it, launching Fleischman into a much-honored career as a children’s book author.
Fleischman, whose book “The Whipping Boy” earned him the Newbery Medal in 1987, died of cancer Wednesday at his home in Santa Monica, Calif., the day after his 90th birthday, said his son, Paul.
