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Meet two detective dogs as they search for the missing jewels in The Disappearing Magician.
Children love stories where the main characters are animals. Cat and dogs are their favorite choice because these animals are familiar pets. In The Disappearing Magician, author Louise Dickson gives young children exactly what they want: two human-like dogs and plenty of adventure. Lu and Clancy are taking a nice and much needed vacation on a cruise ship. All Lu wants to do is relax and sniff the warm, salty air. When you are a dog detective and catch crooks for a living, however, there is no such thing as time off. Lu looks around the ship and spots a poster on a wall. It is for a magic show and features Arabella, a dazzling white cat. Lu wants to go, so she, Clancy, and their two friends, Ruckus and Ruby, head off to see the show. It turns out to be an amazing show. Ruby is picked as a volunteer for the sawing through a box trick and comes out unharmed. Everyone claps. Later that night, Clancy is dreaming of being a magician when, suddenly, the ship starts to rock. Awake, Clancy finds that Lu is seasick. He goes off in search of something to make Lu feel better. Another large wave hits the ship and Clancy is thrown through an open door. He hears someone talking and perks up his ears. It was Arabella, the magician, talking on the telephone about magic. “It will be my best trick ever,” Arabella says. Clancy is excited. The next night, Lu, Clancy, Ruckus, and Ruby all go to Arabella’s magic show and, instead of watching a magic trick, they witness a dirty trick. A thief steals the crowd’s jewelry! The Disappearing Magician by Louise Dickson (Kids Can Press, ISBN-10 1-55453-033-4) is a fun mystery, adventure book for young children who still need a little bit of help when reading. What is great about the Lu and Clancy books is that they are not babyish. Older children in grades 3-4 who have difficulty reading will enjoy this series, and it will help them gain confidence in their reading skills. What is especially fun about the Lu and Clancy mysteries is that at the end of each book kids are shown how to do a simple magic trick. In The Disappearing Magician, kids learn to do a mind-reading trick with a friend: Three objects are set on a table. The friend is blindfolded as someone from the audience is asked to point to one of the objects on the table. After an object has been pointed out, the blindfold is removed and the friend has to guess which object was picked. There’s a trick to getting the right answer! You have to give the answer to your friend in a special, secret code.
The copyright of the article The Disappearing Magician in Picture Books is owned by Elizabeth Yetter. Permission to republish The Disappearing Magician in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
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