Lincoln Public Library Summer Reading Program
Magician Richard Landry encourages children and adults to read more books

 

[July 06, 2023] 

On Thursday, July 6, children, and adults enjoyed a performance by Comedy Magician Richard Landry of Chatham as part of the Lincoln Public Library’s Summer Reading Program.

While the children waited for the program to begin, Landry told them he brought some cool stuff. He asked the children to raise their hands if they like magic, like to read, like going to the library and just like raising their hands. He then told them to raise their hands if they were here and if they were not here. There was a big show of hands each time even when he said raise your hands if you are not here.

Reading books is one way Landry said he learned to do magic when he was younger.

To make magic happen, Landry asked the children to shout, “read more books” when he counted to three. He also taught them to wave their fingers in the air to do a “finger dance” as they shouted.

Next, Landry brought out a clapometer to register how well everyone clapped. Landry asked everyone to clap quietly and then a little louder to make the clap good.

For the last round of applause, Landry asked the audience to clap as loudly as they could for the librarians who are at the library all year long making sure we get enough books to read. Librarians know the more we read, the smarter we get. Landry said they would go back to school being smarter after reading so much. As everyone clapped loudly, the clapometer’s red mark moved up to the top noting the clapping was great.

A stack of books Landry brought showed what he is reading this summer. One was a book of magic tricks.

For Landry’s first trick, he pulled out his book of tricks and read aloud the instructions for the mystery of the cleaning handkerchiefs. The first instruction was to choose two helpers sitting quietly to help with the trick. Once Landry had chosen a boy and a girl, he gave the girl three dirty stinky handkerchiefs and the boy a small clothesline and three clothespins.

Landry had the young girl wad up the handkerchiefs into a tight ball and place it in his magic bag, but the balled-up handkerchiefs fell out because there was a hole in the bottom of the bag.

Once Landry got the balled-up handkerchiefs to stay in the bag, the young boy placed the clothesline and clothespins in the bag.

The girl was given five wands including two Landry placed in her armpits. He asked her to wave all five wands at once, which was challenging with the ones under her arms. She was asked to wave one wand three times, but it appeared to break. The boy was then given the wand, but it kept breaking for him too.

To see what needed to be done differently, Landry read more of the instructions, but there was a page missing. He reminded everyone to take good care of books.

By using his imagination, Landry decided how to finish the trick. He pulled out two new magic wands. These wands were flexible, and the two helpers kept stretching them out. Finally, the helpers waved the wands by the bag as the audience shouted, “read more books.”

The handkerchiefs came out of the bag completely clean and attached to the clothesline.

Before his next trick, Landry went to grab a bottle of water to quench his thirst, but the children pointed out that he had pulled out a bottle of ketchup. Landry screamed and made faces as he wondered where his water went.

Going over to a box with pictures of books on it, Landry looked for a rabbit. He used a squeaky handkerchief and pretended to cry when he could not find a rabbit.

Pulling out the book If You Give a Mouse a Cookie, Landry said he likes the book. He loves cookies and has a cookie jar shaped like a white rabbit.

Since the cookie jar is empty every time Landry goes to grab a cookie, he created a cookie vault. He took a cookie and asked the children to guess which hand his cookie was in.

When Landry buys cookies, he puts one in the vault and the rest in the jar. That way, he always has cookies. Landry put a cookie in one side of the vault and opened the vault, but it was not there. Landry did that with both sides of the vault.

Next, Landry turned the vault towards him and opened the doors on it, he could still not see the cookie. The children told him to turn the vault’s doors toward the audience so they could see.

Eventually, Landry gave up on trying to find the cookie. He turned his back to the audience, and the cookie was on the back of his shirt. Landry acted shocked that it was there.

Pulling out a cookie box, Landry chose a helper and gave the helper an Oreo hat to wear. Landry placed a small white ball in the helper’s hand, which represented the icy white filling, which is Landry’s favorite part of the Oreo.
 

The helper closed his hand around the ball and when he opened his hand, there were two balls. Landry said the cookie would now be double stuffed. There were two balls in his hand on the next try too. After that, one of the balls in the helper’s hand turned brown like a chocolate stuffed Oreo center.

After another wave of the wand, several balls popped out of the helper’s hand. Landry put these balls in a bag that looked like a cow’s udder since milk goes with cookies. The helper tapped the magic bag and pulled out a bag of Oreo cookies, which the boy was able to keep.

As Landry talked about various books, he read part of a counting book about Oreos doing magic tricks. He had the audience guess how many Oreos would be on each page.

In a book called How Are You Peeling, Landry showed everyone fruit and vegetables with different facial expressions drawn on them.

Many of the books Landry said he likes to read are silly and weird. One example is It’s Disgusting and We Ate It with true food facts from around the world throughout history. Landry showed everyone pages with odd recipes like earthworm soup, a traditional fever “medicine” in China. Another was rat stew, which Landry said is part of international dining.

For the next trick, Landry chose a young boy to wear a magic hat with a mystic eye on it, magic sunglasses, and a magic cape. Landry then found an egg behind the boy’s ear.

The boy was given a tiny wand to help with the trick, but the children said the wand was too tiny. The children said the next wand was way too big.

Going over to a box, Landry looked for the rabbit he had tried to find earlier with no luck. This time when Landry turned the box around, Snowball the rabbit was in it. He told everyone to be quiet as he brought Snowball out.

Snowball and the boy then posed for a photo wearing fake mustaches.

Landry told everyone about Snowball’s favorite food and drink. He pretended Snowball had something to tell him and leaned in to hear. Landry said I am not going to tell the audience about the Snowball Landry Fan Club on Facebook.

Because Landry could not perform for a year and a half due to the pandemic, he said he decided to build Snowball a beauty nap chamber. Landry said it took months to build the beauty nap chamber because he wanted it to look like a pet carrier. The children told Landry it was a cage.

When Landry tried to put Snowball in the carrier, Snowball flopped her legs around and acted as if she might hop out of his hand.

Finally, Landry got Snowball in the carrier and had her peek out to say goodbye to the audience. The children were asked to say, “Bye Snowball, I love you.”

As Landry finished the show, he reminded the adults to read to their children. When Landry’s boys were young, he read to them every day and they spent a lot of time in the library. Landry the adults, “the more you read the smarter they will get, and you will have lots of good memories.”

Next Thursday, the Mason County Conservation District will provide a Birds of a Feather program.

[Angela Reiners]