Another young man, who makes magic with the drums and also smiles broadly, is 14-year-old Jonathan Severe.

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My kids have entered that nebulous no-mans-zone known as the middle grade (or tween) years: too old for simple chapter books (like The Magic Tree House series), but too young to demolish YA books about vampires by the dozen.

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When Robbins was twenty-two, he decided to move his young family to Las Vegas and devote himself to magic full time.

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