BEYOND Beyond Look, Don’t See by Christopher Barnes – Book

“Not only does Christopher T. Magician find fantastic methods to entrain children, but they are good! Really good. No fillers here. The routines in this book are terrific. Any one of them can become a feature in your show. Christopher understands how kids think, what makes them laugh, and how to keep them entertained!”
– From the Foreword by David Kaye

Christopher T. Magician took the kid show and family show community by storm with the release of his first book Beyond Look, Don’t See: Furthering the Art of Children’s Magic. Ten years later, he returns with its sequel.

BEYOND Beyond Look, Don’t See is bigger and better than the original, encapsulating a decade’s worth of Christopher’s experience and growth. Clocking in at 826 pages, the tome includes 26 brand new kid show techniques, including Let’s Practice, Fallout, The Pop-Out, Add Mentalism, Shrink Vanish, Miscall, and many more. Each technique is guaranteed to bring about laughter and reactions from young audiences.

Accompanying each chapter are two fully-scripted, hilarious kid show routines, highlighting how easily and effectively the techniques can be paired with standard magic to bring about uproarious delight for children.

Routine highlights include:

“Yellow” to “Red.” Christopher’s take on the Color-Changing Silks involves a yellow silk with the word “Yellow” printed on it. After a few unsuccessful attempts to change the silk to red, the audience is surprised to discover the word “Yellow” has changed to “Red.” As a surprise climax, the yellow silk does change colors, resulting in hilarious shouts from the audience.

“Disastrous Ropes.” Honed in hundreds of shows, Christopher’s take on the classic Ropes through Body solves many of the issues associated with the illusion. Filled with sight gags that will leave adults laughing and children screaming, two ropes penetrate a child helper … or did they?

“The Pop-Out Card.” After displaying an empty envelope, a birthday card surprisingly appears, rising up out of the envelope without the magician knowing. A few craft supplies are all it takes to build this ingenious prop.

“Snake Snack.” Here Christopher presents his standard version of magic baking … on steroids. After a Spring Snake magically appears instead of a cake, the audience continues to thwart the magician’s wishes by making multiple snakes appear.

Like the original Beyond Look, Don’t See, each chapter is also paired with multiple Take It and Run with It ideas that demonstrate the usefulness of each technique. While not fully-formed routines, each of these Take It and Run with It concepts has the potential for any magician to take it, run with it, and turn it into a complete classic kid show routine.

Along the way, Christopher takes a break from the techniques to present Spotlight chapters. These chapters, rather than sharing specific routine-building tools, focus on general aspects of a kid show performance. These Spotlight chapters include:

“But Grownups Laugh Too.” Christopher shares his methods for entertaining adults during his kid shows … without sacrificing the entertainment of the kids.

“Magician Control.” This frank discussion on the topic of Kid Control highlights the importance of redefining how the magician reacts to behavioral issues that arrive during a show.

“The Family Show: A Perilous Tightrope.” Contrary to popular belief, kid shows are not family shows. Christopher delves into the differences of both audiences and explains how to effectively entertain each.

Whether as a stand-alone or as a companion to Christopher T. Magician’s first release, if you care about the quality of your performance, BEYOND Beyond Look, Don’t See is a must have for any kid show performer’s library.