I read the book years ago and loved it and now I cannot find the name
or author. The subject is about a young girl who realizes the people
around her are being controled by some person practicing mind control.
She realizes that the belts and watches and things they wear help
conduct the mind control. It also has a young boy who was poor and his
home was at the bottom of a hill where trucks spead by and he
eventualy caused them to crash as they came to the bottom of the hill.
I was told when I was young that this book was also published in
England under the name "The Royal Crown" or something like that. Great
book, I just want to read it again. If anyone knows the name or author
by some stroke of luck that would be awesome. Thanks.

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Request for Question Clarification by rainbow-ga on 16 Nov 2006 17:32 PST

Please let me know if this is the book you are thinking of:

Ice Crown by Andre Norton 

"A young girl accompanies an expedition to a planet settled centuries
before by colonists who were left there to develop as best they could
after their minds were cleared of all previous memories."

http://www.amazon.com/Ice-Crown-Andre-Norton/dp/0441358446


Looking forward to hearing your views.

Best regards,
Rainbow

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Request for Question Clarification by juggler-ga on 17 Nov 2006 00:27 PST

Could it be "The Silver Crown" (1968)?

"Throughout her lengthy stay, she sees a large black machine, the
Hieronymus Machine:  it was a machine capable of controlling all the
minds in the world and the silver crown and it?s wearer was the only
thing that could stop it, so it tried to destroy both. It had many
people under its control in the building. Ellen was unaffected by the
commands of the machine, making it possible for her to discover how to
destroy the machine. Will Ellen be able to save her friend, discover
who the green hoods really are, end the rule of the monstrous machine,
save the brainwashed captives that live in the building, and free her
family by using the power of her silver crown?"
http://www.grammarface.com/index.php/book/more/the_silver_crown/

Let me know if this is the book that you have in mind.

Hello.

I'm going to go ahead and put down "The Silver Crown" (1968) by Robert
O'Brien as the official answer here.
http://www.amazon.com/Silver-Crown-Aladdin-Fantasy/dp/0689841116

I happened to pick up a copy at my local library today, and I'm 100%
sure that it's the book in question here.

The part about belts, watches, etc., conducting the mind control is
explained in Chapters 26 & 27.  Here are some excerpts:

"The machine exercises control through the use of a black colored
mineral called malignite... In the presence of malignite, even in very
small quantities, control of human subjects is completely effective in
almost one hundred percent of cases."

"When we give one of our wristwatches to a watch to watch manufacturer
and he puts it on, from that minute he'll manufacture watches as we
tell him to. Furthermore, he'll pay use for the malignite he puts into
them...  In a year or so, there will be millions of malignite watches
and dolls and toys and other things as well."

--------------
search strategy:
juvenile fiction crown "mind control"

Thanks.

I think that you may be correct. I am suprised you found that. Also,
it looks like one of the commentors was correct too, good work. Thanks
everyone.