Comments on: Fun magic trick book for kids: Spooky Magic

By: pennydreadful

pennydreadful — Thu, 10 Jan 2013 18:30:00 +0000

I actually found Revolt on Alpha C at an estate sale for $.10 not all that long ago. Picked it up because i thought the cover was cool. glad to see more work from the illustrator

By: hanoverfiste

hanoverfiste — Thu, 10 Jan 2013 02:55:00 +0000

I got Spooky Magic in 1st grade during our annual Reading is Fundamental program. I believe all first graders got one book free, or maybe our parents had to send a dollar. This was like my second magic book and helped launch a hobby that lasted throughout my early 20s.

By: JAB

JAB — Wed, 09 Jan 2013 20:37:00 +0000

abebooks has them cheap, low as a buck. I got one for my nephew for $3.79, including shipping.

By: Chuk

Chuk — Wed, 09 Jan 2013 16:55:00 +0000

Or they could just, you know, keep selling Harry Potter.

By: Chuk

Chuk — Wed, 09 Jan 2013 16:55:00 +0000

They still do this at my kids’ school, got a new catalogue yesterday.

By: zeeba

zeeba — Wed, 09 Jan 2013 13:29:00 +0000

That was Magic Made Easy – same author, different tricks. Had the Jumping Rubber Band on the cover.

By: Hanglyman

Hanglyman — Wed, 09 Jan 2013 10:17:00 +0000

Wow! I guess I had this too. The cover isn’t familiar at all, but looking at the scan of a couple pages inside… seems pretty unmistakeable in style, though not color. Was there another magic book with the same tricks, art and themes? I seem to remember mine being printed entirely in black, white and orange.

By: Stefan Jones

Stefan Jones — Wed, 09 Jan 2013 05:41:00 +0000

The Spooky Magic cover looks familiar, but I don’t think I read it.

Revolt on Alpha C, I didn’t own but certainly read, and in that edition.

Does anyone else here remember Scholastic school book sales? At our elementary school they’d take over the cafeteria for an evening, laying out books on tables. My mom would let us pick up a few each year.

By: Ash Kalb

Ash Kalb — Wed, 09 Jan 2013 04:30:00 +0000

We have a copy of Revolt on Alpha C for sale at scifibooks.com. Amazed it hasn’t gone yet.

By: Xploder

Xploder — Wed, 09 Jan 2013 03:07:00 +0000

I actually HAD that Silverberg book. Can’t say as I remember one damn thing about it except the wonderful (godawful) cover, but I DID have it! Also had all the Tom Corbett books…ah youth…

By: harrisonicus

harrisonicus — Wed, 09 Jan 2013 02:20:00 +0000

My BRAIN! I totally remember that book! And it had been erased from my mind for some reason. Thanks for the trip down memory lane.

By: Kat

Kat — Wed, 09 Jan 2013 02:00:00 +0000

*snork* It is now up to $52.50

The BoingBoing Bounce :)

By: Mark_Frauenfelder

Mark_Frauenfelder — Wed, 09 Jan 2013 01:44:00 +0000

Scholastic should put all of these into a fat anthology and market it to nostalgic middle age geeks like us. They’d make a fortune!

By: Mark_Frauenfelder

Mark_Frauenfelder — Wed, 09 Jan 2013 01:43:00 +0000

“ I love to order old books that I had as a kid. Getting them back into my hands feels like bringing a piece of the past back to life.”

This is so true.

By: jimkirk

jimkirk — Wed, 09 Jan 2013 01:40:00 +0000

Oh, man, I had both these books as a kid. Good stuff. Also, The Runaway Robot, The Thinking Machine, Codes and Ciphers… Scholastic Books order time was one of my favorite things in second and third grade.

By: Joseph Francis

Joseph Francis — Wed, 09 Jan 2013 01:20:00 +0000

When I was a kid we lived for a year in India and I saw them do that floating trick behind the Taj Mahal.

By: D3

D3 — Wed, 09 Jan 2013 01:15:00 +0000

I also had that book; that brought back a lot of memories. I love to order old books that I had as a kid. Getting them back into my hands feels like bringing a piece of the past back to life. I once ordered a stack of old Children’s Digests. What a feeling of nostalgia. Great magazine, too.

By: jimh

jimh — Wed, 09 Jan 2013 00:47:00 +0000

I had this too!
You reminded me instantly of how much I enjoyed the Scholastic books catalog when I was a kid. I would pick out books I wanted and then beg my parents to let me order them. Usually they gave in because, hello – books! Only to then suffer the interminable waiting until book delivery day.

By: Chuk

Chuk — Wed, 09 Jan 2013 00:10:00 +0000

I loved this book as a kid, too — never got up to the really big tricks but had several of the smaller ones working.

By: Dana Law

Dana Law — Tue, 08 Jan 2013 23:44:00 +0000

The levitation alone makes this a valuable part of any magic library. It was the first way I floated a kid, myself.
Dana Law
Amazing Dana the Magician

By: zeeba

zeeba — Tue, 08 Jan 2013 22:48:00 +0000

Spooky Magic rocked! I still have it and its companion by the same author, Magic Made Easy. Both featured simple, fairly foolproof effects that kids could easily learn to do and were really quite mystifying to the uninitiated. I preferred the latter, because it focused more on smaller presentations that worked well in one-to-one settings or in small groups. Spooky Magic was more oriented toward larger, stage-type effects that often required the assistance of a confederate, which I always regarded as cheating a bit. But they were definitely two of my favorite SBS acquisitions.

By: Joe Holmes

Joe Holmes — Tue, 08 Jan 2013 22:41:00 +0000

I remember the book well!

(Spoiler Alert!)

I kept the prop legs that were used in that cover trick for many years, most of the time sticking out from under my bed. Priceless!