This book/story does not Google well

[calzephyr]

My husband told me about a book he read when he was a child in the 80s (Canada, English).

It was one of those ratty paperbacks...so well read or well loved in the library. It was probably written in the late 70s.

It was about a genie that was trapped in a tape recorder back in the 60s. A young boy buys or finds the tape recorder and releases the genie. The boy helps the genie discover how life has changed in the last ten or fifteen years.

Despite this very specific description, the best Google can come up with is Kazaam, the Shaq movie where there's a genie trapped in a boombox.

Is hubs misremebering? Mashing up a few different sources? Any guesses?

Comments

[greendryad]

Maybe Kazaam was based on a book. Perhaps you could rent the movie and pay special attention to the opening credits?

[calzephyr]

That's a great idea! All I could find about authorship was in this bit in the Wikipedia entry:

Kazaam is a 1996 American musical fantasy comedy film directed by Paul Michael Glaser, written by Christian Ford and Roger Soffer based on a story by Glaser, and starring Shaquille O'Neal as the title character, a 5,000-year-old genie who appears from a magic boombox to grant a boy three wishes.

Hubs swears he read it in a book and has never watched Kazaam. Ah well!

[greendryad]

What about this?

https://smile.amazon.com/Kazaam-Novelization-Nicholas-Edwards/dp/0590931040/ref=sr_1_14?keywords=Paul+Michael+Glaser&qid=1580617307&s=books&sr=1-14

[calzephyr]

It's unlikely. Hubs was already in college when the novelization and movie came out.

It's possible that the trope is just common enough to be similar :-) Thanks though!