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GOTCHA! by David Acer

GOTCHA!

18 Amazing Ways to Freak Out Your Friends

by David Acer & illustrated by Stephen MacEachern

Pub Date: Sept. 1st, 2008
ISBN: 978-1-55453-194-3
Publisher: Kids Can

This playful collection actually offers 19 cool tricks, from appearing to hypnotize a friend to making a crop circle, accompanied by examples and explanations and a final puzzle. Based on the Canadian television series Mystery Hunters, co-written and co-hosted by Acer, author of a number of magic books for adults, this combines instructions for magic tricks and illusions with photographs of teen characters from the show investigating various mysterious topics. Who wouldn't want to be able to video a UFO or a lake monster, to seem to fly or to move things with the power of the mind? Clear, step-by-step instructions are presented like recipes and laid out in boxes with MacEachern’s humorous cartoon illustrations as support. The multicultural cast even includes an alien friend. With orange direction boxes and lime-green explanation ovals printed on blue pages, even the design will make readers smile. (Nonfiction. 8-12)