findthatbook | Entries tagged with genre:fantasy

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?

megs422

Please help. I’ve posted this in every book group I can find. I’m starting to think I am actually crazy. Between 2000-2003 I read a series of books, I want to say there were 4, that had to do with a boy coming of age and discovering his worth and powers. Pretty typical for that time frame. The specifics though, involve broken waygates (they could be called something else). The boy eventually, probably in the last books, transforms physically because of his use of magic. He gets ears like a horse, his eyes move a bit farther apart, his nails and teeth become square and harden. I remember him accepting the changes. They’re part of him. He also lived an older couple in the book. They had horses and a farm I believe. The woman was ugly, but her husband loved her deeply, because of her character. That always struck me as relatable because I tend towards liking people based on how they act rather than how they look and when you’re 16 that’s a rare trait. Or it seemed to be anyways. I remember fire magic and maybe a magic plague of some sort, though that could be from another series entirely. This book series was one of the first that introduced me to gates and I feel like they traveled between places in his world, not to other worlds. Someone has to have read these right?? Thank you!!

Current Mood: determined

ashstar54321

There was a book I read some ten years ago in elementary school. I can't remember too much but for a few concrete details and a few things I'm not sure if I remember correctly. I have been unable to find this book and it's driving me half mad. I am hoping someone here can help?

Things I remember for certain:
It was a large paperback picture book.
A boy and his cat are on an adventure, looking for something.
They fail in their quest, so the king/monarch/ruler traps them each in a locked cube of sorts. (There's a happy ending eventually, I just don't remember how).
The illustrations are full of puzzles and illusions. There are two that I remember distinctly:
1. Towards the beginning, there was a full page illustration and the reader was supposed to find all of the cats. Some we actual cats, others were bushes or shadows or silhouettes made up of other objects.
2. A tunnel stretching out, with the lines along the wall getting closer together toward the far end. It was on of those height illusions, where all three objects were really the same size, but the lines made some appear larger than others.
Illusion and magic were major themes.

Things I may or may not remember correctly:
The cat was black or black and white
The boy wore an cloak that was somewhere on the red-orange end of the color spectrum and a pointed hat.
The boy and cat were trapped in separate magical cubes.
The ruler who had imprisoned them was deeply saddened by something.
The boy was a magician, or training to be one.
Many far more skilled magicians had attempted the quest before and all had failed and been imprisoned.
The objects in the tunnel height illusion mentioned above were toy beings of some sort--maybe toy soldiers?
The tunnel was a blue color and the height illusion objects seemed to be floating at different heights.
There was a large cat-shaped bush in the 'how many cats' illusion, and the caption for that image said something about being distracted and needing to find the boy's cat before moving on.
All the illustrations had a bit of fuzziness to them, like they had been originally done in colored pencil, but I might be making that up.

I can't remember anything else--it's been years since I had read it, but I remember it fondly. I would love to rediscover it, and would be so, so grateful to anyone who could provide me with a solid lead!

Find That Book

Entries tagged with genre:fantasy

This book/story does not Google well

High Fantasy probably from the 80’s

Fantasy, Mystery, Puzzle

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