Paths to Enchantment: A Professional Approach to Children's Entertainment

Readers of books on the subject of children's magic expect to find detailed accounts of tricks and routines. While Paths to Enchantment has plenty of these, it breaks exciting new ground by giving children's magicians and clowns a step-by-step system designed to help them discover their own creative talents and increase the intensity of entertainment in their performances.

The majority of children's entertainers are so obsessed with obtaining and trying out the latest innovation that they seldom search within themselves and discover what new ideas they can apply to props they already possess. One block to such personal invention is the lack of a systematic structure the performer can apply to the task, a foundation on which to develop entertaining ideas from the subconscious. Paths to Enchantment is believed to be the first cohesive attempt to analyze those aspects of a successful performance that give pleasure to children.

Malcolm Yaffe, a veteran of children's magic with more than thirty years' experience in the field, has identified and defined eleven essential techniques on which to build fresh and successful presentations for the tricks you already own. After explaining each technique, he illustrates how it is applied, using dozens of examples drawn from his professional repertoire, among which are several prize-winning routines and presentations.