Secrets of Magic

So the other day I went with my wife to pick up son bookdave at the Public Library where he hangs out after school and what did I stumble on but a Library book sale! Always a good place to find some bargains! Even at prices ranging from 25 cents to a dollar, however, pickings were slim. The wife found three history hardcovers, the boy found some scary teen books and I found nothing...until...this!
SECRETS OF MAGIC is a 1973 paperback edition of a 1967 book by THE SHADOW'S creator, Walter B. Gibson! Behind this weird, quasi-psychedelic cover is page after page that does the unthinkable--explaining every major stage and traditional magician illusion up to that point in simple, easy to understand terms. Nothing about this book says it's a kids book but it has that look of all those magazine-sized educational kids books one always used to find in department stores in the sixties. Gibson, as I recall, was an illusionist himself along with being a pulp writer so he probably didn't even have to do much research for a book like this one. In fact, Wikipedia points out that the prolific author wrote more than a hundred books on magic! Here at my Library, we now have...one.