Community Corner
Abracadabra! The Great Baldini Brings Some Magic to East Providence
The Great Baldini performed some magic for the kids at The Weaver Library on Wednesday night.
It was 6:30 pm on a hot summer night and abracadabra—The Great Baldini appeared.
The magician looked down at all the young, eager faces staring up at him and asked, “Who likes magic?”
Instantly, every little hand shot up.
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Then The Great Baldini introduced his assistant, Skinny, known to most of us as a skeleton.
“Skinny will take us all around the world,” said Baldini. “I hope we have lots of laughs and smiles as we go learn about the world.”
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The magician was a special guest at Weaver Library’s first summer reading show for children ages four and up. According to his website, The Great Baldini is otherwise known as Thomas Holmes and “it wasn’t until his hair was gone that (he) discovered his gift for magic.”
Throughout his presentation, The Great Baldini donned an assortment of hats and pointed out various continents and countries on his map of the world. He taught the kids something locales including Mexico, Scandinavia, China, Australia, Africa, Antarctica, South America and The United States.
Of course there were magic tricks accompanying the geography lessons. The Great Baldini pulled a giant straw out of a juice box, did a ring trick making big white rings change colors, made an egg disappear out of a cloth pouch, asked the audience to stare at the center of a black and white spiral (and then look at the magician’s face which appeared much smaller). And he turned green, yellow and red scarves into three pieces of fruit: a lime, a lemon and an apple.
For each magic trick the children were asked to chant, “Skin-ny, Skin-ny, Skin-ny.”
At the end of his show, The Great Baldini held up three large cards and asked the kids to pick the most important card.
He then turned the chosen card around and said, “This is the most important card because it’s a library card. You can go all around the world if you have this card.”
Then he handed out certificates to all the children to thank them for helping with the magic saying, “The magic is with you now.”
