Folk Illusions

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With clear focal points, sound and carefully explained methodology, and thought-provoking, substantial analysis, this book makes an excellent contribution to children's folklore and related fields.

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~Elizabeth Tucker, author of Children's Folklore: A Handbook

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Barker and Rice, the contemporary Brothers Grimm of illusions, have assembled and systematized a compilation of folk illusions, thanks to a painstaking process of recording children's reports and adult recollections, and by directly observing interactions among kids.

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~Susana Martinez-Conde, author (with Stephen L. Macknik and Sandra Blakeslee) of Sleights of Mind: What the Neuroscience of Magic Reveals about Our Everyday Deceptions

"This book explores much deeper issues of psychology and even deeper neurology. Just when we thought we knew everything there is to know about our own bodies and their responses, we can have new and surprising experiences engendered by simple little tricks. This learned, encyclopedic, and well-referenced examination fully realizes the authors' aim of establishing these phenomena as a genre of folklore in its own right."

~Janet E. Alton, Folklore

"Throughout the book, Barker and Rice make a compelling argument not only for the inclu-sion of folk illusions as its own genre, but also for interdisciplinary research to explore issues of perception and belief."

~Mintzi Auanda Martínez-Rivera, Journal of American Folklore