Hook Your Audience (volume 1): How educational presenters can captivate their learners using performance techniques

Review
"If professional standards are to be raised, audiences and learners captivated, and the full objectives of informal science presentations are to be achieved, then this is the book to be read and applied. Order a set of copies now!" Colin Johnson, Hon Fellow, Ecsite - the European Network of Science Centres and Museums in SPOKES magazine
"This book sets out clearly and logically everything an informal educator needs to know in order to present effectively, and as such it is a real goldmine of practical and thoughtful advice and tips." Mark Leveridge, Editor, Magicseen
"This book is delightfully genius, and more important than that, it's USEFUL! It's so rare to find such a positive book, about genuinely caring for your audiences and a presenter's impact." Dr Sai Pathmanathan, author and education consultant
"If I was teaching science communication, this book would be at the top of the reading list. I wish I'd read it twenty years ago, it would have saved me a lot of time and trouble." Alom Shaha, author and science teacher
"For career educational performers like me, who started when it wasn't really a recognised activity, it is truly delightful to see this book on the shelves. It reveals just how much work goes into making live educational shows work." Tom Pringle (aka Dr Bunhead)
How do you present when nobody has to listen to you?
If you work as an informal educator in a visitor attraction or outreach organisation this is the challenge you face every day. Without being able to win and keep the attention of your audience, all of your other objectives are impossible to achieve.
Hook Your Audience is a toolkit of performance techniques to emotionally engage child and family audiences in interactive, educational presentations. Its main purpose is to encourage you to reflect more deeply on exactly how you hook your learners using engagement techniques. Many of these hooks are borrowed from other professional performers, such as magicians, stand-ups, street performers and actors.
The toolkit explores issues, such as: how to use your personality to connect with audiences; how to make your crafted presentations appear spontaneous; how to maintain your enthusiasm when delivering the same content for the 537th time; how to coax volunteers from a teenage audience who seem glued to their seats; how to create humour, even if you feel you aren't naturally funny.
This comprehensive guide is written in short chunks so that it can be read tool-by-tool or scanned and dipped into according to your interests. The toolkit: explains the principles behind the tools; curates hundreds of engagement hooks for you to consider implementing; illustrates many of these hooks with examples; shares quotations to stimulate reflection; summarises the key ideas at the end of each tool; and includes a glossary of the performing terminology.
Paul McCrory runs HOOK training ltd, a company devoted to helping educators engage their learners. His approach combines interactive performance techniques and psychology. He has spent over 20 years working as an informal science educator and trainer in the UK, Ireland and internationally. The most interesting thing about Paul is that he has a PhD in being interesting.
"A string of crystallised nuggets of gold advice in a field for which I thought it would be impossible to write an instruction manual." Marilena Pace, STEM content producer
"Super practical, tried and tested techniques for any topic. This is a book I could have bought several times over for training museum educators over the years." Rachel Ayrton, Learning & Interpretation Manager, King Richard III Visitor Centre
"I honestly, can't recommend this book enough. Even if you have some background in performance, there are so many thoughtful insights and practical suggestions to help you get your message over to other people." Siân Bevan, Arts Project Manager
"You know those movies where you take a pill and then know ‘everything