What's the Name of That Book??? discussion
This topic is about
The Magic Ball from Mars
SOLVED: Children's/YA
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SOLVED. 1950s boy, spaceman gives him an orb. [s]
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Son of a gun! This site is incredible! (May I ask how you knew that?)Solved, obv!
Woohoo! I can get the book, and its sequel, which I just now found out exists, in one volume! D'oh! I could spend a weekend in DC for what that one volume costs.
Lorna wrote: "Son of a gun! This site is incredible! (May I ask how you knew that?)"Great! When I googled "his Ted Williams baseball card" book "A Book Report on The Magic Ball From Mars" was in the results - appears to be author's son site. It seems you can read the book there, too.
Boy about ten years old is catching fireflies when a space man lands in his yard. There were illustrations, and while I'm not positive the ship was shown, I remember the spaceman wearing a one-piece shiny jumpsuit. In fact, he looked kind of like Aquaman. He talks to the kid for a bit, then either gives him an object he already had that resembles a marble, or the kid has a marble and spaceman does something to it. At any rate, this marble can fly around if the kid uses his mind to make it move.
Adults find out, and he gets whisked off to D.C. to meet with what was not specifically called NASA. There's one government official who is good at joking around to get the kid to talk. He and the kid are outside with some USAF guys when a group of spaceships buzz the Pentagon, or wherever they are; government guy orders planes to follow them but they can't catch up.
Then, some baddies start tailing the kid and his dad, force him off the road and grab the kid. I think the kid orders the marble to get red-hot and burn the back of the driver's neck. At any rate, he gets away, and spaceman shows up one last time. Kid gives him an Earth souvenir: a Ted Williams baseball card. Government guy thinks it's hilarious that the first American, the first *person* in space is a baseball player.