April 7, 2004
Party draws full house
Kids Card Party features games and slight-of-hand shuffling and tricks
By Carol South
Herald contributing writer
Games, magic tricks and sleights of hand were the theme of a Kids Card Party held Friday at the Traverse Area District Library.
Drawing 40 attendees between the ages of 10-15, the party featured a demonstration and discussion of card policies by Paul Johnson, a table game supervisor at Turtle Creek Casino. The casino also donated 72 decks of cards for the event, as Johnson noted that no deck is used for more than 24 hours in the casino.
Casey Stanton, a self-taught card shark from Suttons Bay, performed numerous magic tricks for the audience. Keeping up a steady patter, Stanton amazed them with disappearing and reappearing cards.
"I really liked the card tricks, he was good," said Beth Henley, an 11th grade homeschooled student, who attended the event with her sister and brother.
After the tricks, participants could either play card games or head to Stanton's table. Stanton, who has been doing magic since the eighth grade, demonstrated a number of tricks and showed off fancy shuffles and card maneuvers.
"This is the magic card, you put it in the middle and it jumps all the way to the top," he said, later showing the particulars of that trick.
Youth Services staff members set up six tables, each dedicated to one card game - some solo games and some open to two or more players. Games included gin rummy, speed, war, solitaire and 21 and staff guided participants if they did not know how to play a game.
Lanae Hanna, 10, tried out a variety of games. She and her brother, Tyler, 10, often play cards together, with their favorite being one called scum.
"We bet goldfish [crackers] playing war and whoever wins gets them all," said Hanna, a homeschooled fourth grade student, who tried out solitaire and speed games during the event.
Card playing is also popular in the Henley family, who will turn to a deck instead of the television during dull moments.
"We like to play rummy when we're bored," said Beth Henley. "My mom and I like to play solitaire and my mom and dad sometimes have friends over to play cards."
The Kids Card Party was geared to area 'tweens,' or children and young teens who are in the upper elementary and lower junior high grade levels. Held during spring break, the party was meant to provide local fun for families who did not leave town.
Youth Services staff has been creating programs for this age group to keep them engaged in the library, at an age when there are many other demands on their time.
"The tweens, some are between a lot of things: they're not little ones and they're not big ones and so we've been working on programming for them for a while," said Christopher Spear, a member of the Youth Services staff. "Also tweens come to these programs, but teenagers don't. So if you want to have a program where people were actually there, do it for this age."
Spear said the Card Party also created spontaneous social time, a development staff welcomed. They also served pizza and pop to the attendees, an ice breaker that helped spur conversations.
"I think what I liked best was that the kids stared interacting socially," Spear noted. "Versus they had fun with the adults and the presenters, but then they started talk to each other; they were making friends."