Once Upon a Time

 

Combining the charm of fairy tales and the wonder of magic, Once Upon a Time is sure to delight both adults and children alike. It contains three routines: Cinderella, Goldilocks and the Three Bears, and Jack  and the Beanstalk, none of which require any difficult sleight of hand.

 

The magician removes what looks like a small, old, leather-bound book from its slip case. The book is opened, and the magician explains that this is a magic book that  tells fairy tales by magic. As the pages are turned, pictures are seen on the pages, but the words on all the pages are the same. That's because you

don't have to read the words, as  the tales tell themselves by magic. In fact, the pages come out of the book, because even if the pages are all mixed up, the magic will still work and the tales will be told. Within the pages, stories such as The Three Bears are discovered.

 

As the stories are told, the characters appear and disappear, bowls of porridge are eaten and chairs are broken at just the right moments in the story.  At the end of the story (in which, of course they all live happily ever after), the pages

are put back into the book cover, and you are all ready to tell the story again, to someone else; or indeed to tell the story of Cinderella, or Jack and the Beanstalk - both of which can also be found within the pages of the book and told straight away, without any need to re-set, or rearrange the pages

 

Available here