she taught him things he already knew

July 11, 2006 5:53 PM

Lost Book: Juvenile sci-fi. A girl from an advanced society befriends a boy on a primitive planet, and gives him a magic rock that makes him telekinetic. The twist is that he (and all other humans) are already telekinetic, but not advanced enough to know how to bring it out in themselves. I think that the girl actually had other powers, including pyrokinesis. I also know how it ends, but will put that inside.

In the end, after an inner struggle, she takes away the rock, and the boy is left 'powerless,' even though technically the rock did nothing and he would still have the power if only he believed it strongly enough, or something.

posted by bingo to grab bag (11 comments total)

A wrinkle in time? I ~know~ I know this one.
posted by Meep! Eek! at 6:52 PM on July 11, 2006

I'm pretty sure it's not A Wrinkle in Time. I read that when I was little, but I don't know this story.
posted by danb at 6:54 PM on July 11, 2006

I don't remember the name, but I think I remember this, and another book in the same series with the same girl on a planet with a roughly modern level of technology. The book you mentioned had a scene with the boy being fascinated by scissors, am I right?
posted by squidlarkin at 6:54 PM on July 11, 2006

Aaah!!! I totally know this book. I can probably quote most of the story line to you, because I read it several times as a kid. She gave him the rock as she was pretending to be a sorceress to fit in with his cultural understanding of the world. There was a third race on the planet too, that had landed there, that was sort of between the heroine's race and the boy's race in terms of advancement. She has to convince him to go fight the "dragon" (mining equipment or some such) because she couldn't directly interfere. She also wasn't actually supposed to be interacting with the natives as she was the daughter of one of the crew members and the original woman who was supposed to pass as a native is killed. Am I right?

I know the heroine's name started with an E and was like Elana or something. I think the title has something about "Messenger" or "from the stars" in it.

I am looking on amazon because this will drive me crazy otherwise.
posted by nelleish at 7:07 PM on July 11, 2006

Enchantress from the Stars by Sylvia Engdahl. Is that it?

My head is full of plot lines of young adult sci fi novels and songs from Sesame Street... I feel like Calvin
posted by nelleish at 7:13 PM on July 11, 2006

If the heroine was called Elana, it is probably Enchantress from the Stars by Sylvia Louise Engdahl. If that isn't the one, possibly someone on the Stump the Bookseller pages at Loganberry Books might know it.
posted by andraste at 7:16 PM on July 11, 2006

I think Nellish and Andraste are right. Enchantress sounds like the right book.
posted by Meep! Eek! at 7:55 PM on July 11, 2006

If the lead character's name is really Elana, I have to find a copy of this for an eponymous friend of mine.
posted by baylink at 7:57 PM on July 11, 2006

I read the page nelleish linked to, and that's got to be it. Awesome, thanks.

And thanks to squidlarkin for pointing out that there's a sequel! If only I could buy it for my ten year old self...
posted by bingo at 8:20 PM on July 11, 2006

an aggressive, space-faring Youngling civilization

Wow, I guess we can't blame that word on George Lucas after all.
posted by kindall at 8:31 PM on July 11, 2006

bingo: Thanks so much for this post. I had pretty much forgotten that book, and I loved it dearly. Now I can go relive childhood memories. And there's even a sequel!
posted by Meep! Eek! at 9:39 PM on July 11, 2006