Review Detail

“How to Fool Your Parents: 25 Brain-Breaking Magic Tricks” by David Kwong is a fun book for kids (and adults, too!). It has twenty-five easy-to-learn tricks that each include instructions and illustrations to help clarify how to pull each one off best.

The book starts off in the beginning pages with the magician’s oath, meant to teach kids that one should never give away magical secrets. There are different kinds of tricks to test out in the book, including those that incorporate sleight of hand, those that deal with technological trickery, and also mentalism and covert communication. Instead of a glossary in the back of the book, early on there are a few pages that have some tricky terms (eighteen in all) that readers may want to know before delving deeper into the pages of the book.

There are tricks with cards, crayons, cellphones, computers, newspapers, lightbulbs, and more. Histories of magicians such as Houdini, Talma, Al Baker, Adelaide Herrmann, and others are detailed throughout the pages, allowing readers to learn about those who came before them and created the magic that made them interested in reading this book in the first place.