We had a fantastic show at the library yesterday, the Magic of Bonaparte, “Boston’s Hottest Magician.”  This show was co-sponsored by the Friends of the Library and the local Cultural Council [please note that I do not name the town that I work in on this blog, and thus will not name the local Cultural Council specifically here], a local agency which is supported by the Massachusetts Cultural Council, a state agency.  Many thanks to both of these organizations for sponsoring this terrific show!!

The crowd that attended the show was huge and very enthusiastic, and I can say with absolute certainty that everyone had an awesome time.  Bonaparte is funny, energetic, knows how to involve the audience, and is a great magician to boot.  He made a concerted effort to adjust his show to interest the teens who attended (and they attended at his specific invitation, as he met them coming through the front door of the library), adding some higher level tricks for them and calling them up on stage several times.  I LOVE when performers are so skilled that they can modify their program to suit the mood and makeup of their audience; not many performers are capable of that on-your-feet thinking, but Bonaparte is great at it.  And it was so nice to see teens having fun at a show like this, because as we all know it can be tough to run programs that appeal to teens.

Even more remarkably, there were several younger children in the audience, some as young as two, who stayed attentive for the entire one hour show.  Think about that:  these two year olds sat still for an hour, fully engaged in the show.  Wow.  And all of the children in between the twos and the teens had a blast, too.  That’s talent, keeping such a broad age range interested and excited for an hour long magic show.

And then there’s the little issue of me being called up on stage not once, but twice.  Thank goodness I actually dressed for the occasion yesterday, wearing a skirt for the first time in who knows how long, because that was a lot of eyes on the shabby children’s librarian.  But Bonaparte gave me the origami crane that he made, a magical crane that will flap its wings for the kids who visit me in the children’s room.  And I got to wear a nice pointy sorcerer’s hat and hold a magic wand while crammed on stage with a dozen other “volunteers” for the grand finale, when Whiskers the rabbit appears out of nowhere.  (Whiskers is very, very cute, by the way.)

Thanks to Bonaparte, and of course to the Friends and the LCC, for this great mid-winter show.  What a way to beat those cabin fever blues!!