Sid Fleischman was born in Brooklyn, New York, on March 16, 1920 three  years after his sister, Pearl. He was given the  Jewish name Avrom Zalmon Fleischman and the American name Albert Sidney. When he was two he moved to San Diego, California until he was 35.  Then he moved to Santa Monica, California. His only grandfather who was alive when he was born got hit by a Coca-Cola truck in 1921.
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When he was 12 he started to take a magician's class and by the age of  16 he was doing magic shows at night clubs. The first act he tried was pulling a rabbit out of his hat. When he learned that rabbits don't like being pulled by their ears he quit that act and went to card tricks and he kept doing that until 1938 when he became a reporter and did that until 1941. He went to college at San Diego State College. Two years into college he went into the Navy for two years. Then came back to finish his education.
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His first job was in third grade as the local paper boy. Then in high school he was the newspaper publisher. Then after college he tried going to write for the big screen, but that didn't work so he started to write books.
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He married Betty Taylor in 1950 with whom he went to the last two years of college. She came from Long Beach, California. They had three children: Jane who went to University of California, Santa Barbara; Anne who went to University of California, Davis;  and Paul who went to University of California, Berkeley.
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