Tom Mason and Dan Danko - The Book of Transformations

I want to like this book. It's about magic, which is a cool topic. It's for kids, who should be encouraged to read. But, to be honest, there's something about this book that makes it less than cool. With the help of professional magicians Spencer and Ken Horsman, authors Tom Mason and Dan Danko walk the reader through the performance of a multitude of magic tricks. The explanations are fairly simple and there are illustrations to show how certain things should be done. What could be wrong with that? Everyone wants to be Harry Potter, don't they? Well, that's the thing. You're not going to be Harry Potter with this book. You're not even going to perform a single trick with this book. The explanations are fine. The trouble is that the explanations constantly refer you to the things you will need from your "Transformations Kit" – which does not come with the book. So the book is pretty useless unless you already own the kit, and I'd bet almost anything that a new kit will come with a book. That leaves me to assume that the only shoppers who'll have a real use for this title are people who picked up a secondhand kit, which may or may not be missing more than just the book.