I have a 9 year-old nephew who is developing an interest in magic, mostly from watching the Harry Potter movies. I thought I would encourage his interest and have slowly started buying him some Tenyo tricks. The first two I gave him were Flash Dice and Cubio. They were some of my favourites when I was first getting into magic. I'm thinking the next one might be soft coins. Still debating. So that got me thinking, what Tenyo trick would you recommend for a youngster getting into magic and why?

Great question wazowski. I remember buying some effects for my son when he was younger and looking to find ones that were easy enough for him to do at the same time visually interesting enough to keep his interest. While many Tenyo items are technically easy to do many can be "finiky" and possibly frustrate someone starting out. A few I would suggest are:

- Crash Dice: Very easy to do and and a great visual (and audio) effect. Kids really seem to like making the die "explode"! I remember seeing a picture of Copperfield teaching this to a child in a hospital many years ago.

- Clean Cut: Easy to do visual rope cutting.

- Vault Vison: Easy to do, a real fooler and can be repeated for his friends. Can also be carried in his pocket to show friends at school.

- Zig Zag Cig: Would substitute the cig for a crayon or golf pencil... otherwise the child may get some funny looks from adults he may perform for!

- Crystal Cleaver - The classic Tenyo effect that goes over very well. My experience is that children can find this a little tricky to re-set and may require some adult supervison. It can teach them the need for practise and rehearsal and it will feel like real magic to them when they first do it.

Hope that helps,

John

I would recommend Dynamic Coins. It is often overlooked, but it is easily one of their best tricks. And it will last for his entire life.

My nephew was performing Dynamic Coins at three years old. It was so cute watching him do it.

If you can't find a Tenyo version there are many quality reproductions.

AA

My son always like to do Unusual Suspects. The props are cute and you can make up a story to go along with it.
I think Zone Infinity and Invisible Zone were others he used to do often.

All mentioned above are great for children. I'd like to add Zone Infinity - great penetration effect which is easy to do and carry around.

It's great to see the magic tradition carried on in the family. All the Disney Tenyo line should appeal to his age. Animation Frame might also grab him due to Pinocchio's appearance. Lucky kid could do all the tricks that Killertweety & myself can't do because of vision. New eyes!

The Coin in Fan is simple to do and very effective. That's what they used to sell to kids up at Tannen's 30 years ago.

4-D Surprise. Super easy to do. Takes 5 minutes to master, and huge impact, appreciated by both kids and adults.

What not to get for kids, even though it sounds like it's for them? Magic Painting.

I second Unusual Suspects - you can build a whole story around it, which is important for kids.

I'm not sure, but Tower of Dice sounds like something a kid can do.

Tower Of Dice requires some akward handling Izzy (at least for me it's akward). If the child's hands are small he'll have trouble performing it in my opinion.

I second dynamic coins.
great looking magic.
and this trick will last
a long time too.

Floating Lady .

T-226 President's Cabinet

A new sealed one?

As a kid, maybe age 13 or 14, I bought Clean Cut and Mira Metal, they were both very easy to do. In addition to Crystal Cleaver, I would suggest Magical Door and Origami Tube as these are also simple enough for a child to perform.

John

Of course