Shows & Programs
Jim Kleefeld retired from thirty years of classroom teaching and went straight back into schools and libraries — this time with magic. Every program below is professionally scripted, fully self-contained, and built around real learning objectives.
Library programs
Every year since 1971, Jim has created a brand-new program especially for libraries. Summer Reading Programs across Ohio and the Midwest have had him back year after year.
Dinosaur Magic
Stegosaurus, Pterodactyl, Tyrannosaurus Rex, Velociraptor, Triceratops. Jim’s 2026 show is all about those huge creatures from our past — stories and tales mixed with magic, and plenty of prehistoric-life books to show off along the way. Fun for children and parents alike.
Murders In the Library
A 60-minute talk built on readers’ most popular genre. Hear about Agatha Christie, Lee Child, Kathy Reichs, Tess Gerritsen and Sue Grafton; meet Hercule Poirot, Jack Reacher, Kinsey Millhone and Stephanie Plum. Puzzles, clues, mysteries and magic, all of it memorable.
Tales From Beyond
A fantastical exploration of assorted eerie oddities — a personal experience in the deadly strange and unusual. Jim brings a collection of artifacts gathered over the years and the exciting, eerie stories that come with them.
Ohio Spirits
A 60-minute collection of stories and legends taken from non-fiction accounts of ghostly investigations and haunted happenings around Ohio. Built to get teens reading, and excited about learning and investigation.
Ohio Hauntings
The sequel to Ohio Spirits, and a 60-minute collection of carefully researched stories and legends from non-fiction accounts of ghostly investigations and haunted places.
Civil War: Personal Stories
A 60-minute talk and display of stories and artifacts from the 1860s — carefully researched tales about families, men, women and children, those who went to war and those they left behind. Jim brings antique and unusual artifacts and the stories behind them.
The Spirits Speak
A 60-minute demonstration and explanation of deception in spiritualism from the early 1900s. Jim tells the stories of spirit mediums who charged exorbitant fees to talk to the dead, and shows the trickery and secret methods they used to do it.
Ohio’s Romantic Tragedies
A 60-minute talk and display of stories and artifacts from the early 1900s — couples, famous and unknown, whose lives became entwined and then entangled. A program that works well during any part of the year.
The Phantasmagorical Steampunk Extravaganza
A fantastical exploration of mechanical contrivances, and a personal experience in the steam-driven strange. Built for teen and young-adult library audiences.
Jim has written more than fifty library programs since 1971 — Jungle, Outer Space, Pirates, Fantasy, Fairy Tales, Hats, Circus, Wild West and many more. If you are looking for a theme you don’t see here, ask him.
Holiday, birthday & family shows
Jim books Christmas and Halloween shows very early, so call to make sure you can reserve a prime date.
Christmas Magic
Santa comes apart in his chimney and is magically restored, Rudolph’s nose turns blue, and there is The World’s Largest Christmas Card. Children hunt for the Christmas Twin, candy canes multiply from one into many, and Jim reads a mind or two.
Spooky Magic
Jim helps out a goofy Frankenstein who loses his head, a skeleton comes apart inside a closet, and a funny ghost flits from room to room changing color from white to green to pink. There are some helpful Halloween safety tips folded in.
Birthday Magic
A birthday book whose pages change magically, a picture of a cake that colors itself, wands that change color, wobble, fall apart and disappear. The birthday child helps perform the magic and receives a special Magic Kit gift from Jim.
Festival & family shows
Festivals are about bringing families out and people together to have a good time. Jim has been doing exactly that, large venue or small, for decades.
Four reasons schools book Jim again
Sound educational programs
Each assembly is structured according to tested pedagogy, to teach as well as entertain. Thirty years of teaching experience is behind every routine.
Completely self-contained
You won’t need to provide a thing. Jim brings the tables, props, sound system, microphone and backdrop curtain, sets up, and cleans up afterward.
The students pay attention
No dry lectures. Funny, exciting routines with constant audience participation — sequenced so children get plenty of excitement without becoming unruly.
A guide for the teachers
Every school program comes with a one-page Teacher’s Guide setting out the concepts, objectives and vocabulary, so a class arrives prepared.
School assembly programs
Each program runs 45 minutes and is geared to elementary learning objectives. Every one has a downloadable Teacher’s Guide.
You Are the Star
A 45-minute, fun-filled program with lots of audience participation that shows the many values of having good character traits. Using the Six Pillars of Character and tales about children, Jim weaves lessons about becoming a better person around fun activities — students learn about Fairness by playing a cup-stacking race.
The No Bully Zone
A fast, exciting, fun-filled program to help teach kids about bullying. Children learn how to identify bullies, what to do when they are bullied, and how to help a friend who is being bullied. Teachers and staff pick up identifiers and techniques to change, thwart or prevent bullying.
Reading Is Magic
Takes students from Kindergarten through 6th grade into the exciting world of fiction. Weaving plots, story lines and characters into magic tricks, Jim celebrates good literature, classic and modern, as characters children know become the subject of appearances, disappearances and magical transformations.
Reading Is Forever!
Eight routines that teach the value and importance of reading. Jim uses books, newspapers, magazines, recipes and signs to convey a different message in each routine — newspapers for information, recipes to create, books for pleasure.
The Mystery of the Missing Books
Crafted like a play, this program involves the audience in a series of hunts for clues to solve the mystery of missing library books. Jim invokes classic puzzles, original inventions and familiar literature to help the audience search — fingerprints, optical illusions, vanishing and reappearing evidence.
The Cat in the Hat Magic Show
An all-new motivational assembly program for elementary audiences, built on the literature and book characters created by Dr. Seuss. Eight routines revolve around Dr. Seuss books and the characters children already know by heart.
The Magic of Ohio
Ten magical routines built on facts about Ohio — its presidents, inventors, explorers and historians, drawn from the state’s rich history. Each routine brings students into a facet of Ohio, past or present, to explore and discover the value of the state.
The Lewis and Clark Magic Program
Written after countless hours of historical research to commemorate the bicentennial of the Lewis and Clark Expedition. Jim studied books and journals written in the 1800s, examined original artifacts from the period, and custom-designed a traveler’s kit for the program.
Check a date
Jim answers his own phone. Tell him the date, the grade levels or the audience, and he will tell you straight away whether he is available and which program fits.
Call (440) 937-5488 Email Jim