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Home » The Vine

The Vine: Ask The Readers Book-a-thon #7

Submitted by on March 3, 2010 – 1:58 PM10 Comments

I’m looking for a book I read in the mid-to-late 1980s.   It was a young adult book and involved a teen boy who has an amulet that causes a portal to another world to open in his bedroom.   He goes through the portal and finds a pavilion with a girl in it.   I don’t really remember what happens to them, though.   I thought the book had the word “pearl” in the title, but Googling with that title and various keywords hasn’t been successful.

There was another reader request on “stump the bookseller” that I think was for the same book:

  • Young adult (series?) read in early 90’s. Fantasy adventure. Teen boy. An amulet. A portal opens in his bedroom. Meets a dead girl and a warrior. Goes into their world on a mission. Enemy soldiers. When going to get caught they hide under water and he has to kiss the dead girl in order to breathe.


I would be so very grateful if you (or the readers) could help me figure out what title this is.   I actually have been looking for it since a few years after I read it — when I tried to check it out from the library a few years later, it wasn’t where I remember it being on the shelves.   I’ve been looking for it ever since.

Thanks,
Marisa

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10 Comments »

  • Jeremy Preacher says:

    The “pavilion” part makes me think it’s The Talisman by Stephen King and Peter Straub (warning, link has spoilers.) I’m not sure if it’s a match, though – I don’t remember the dead girl bits but it’s been a while.

  • Sherry says:

    It’s definitely not The Talisman. I had that book when I was a kid, and it’s nothing like what’s being described. I have no idea what the book Marisa is looking for is, although it sounds like something I would have liked!

  • Barbara says:

    This doesn’t really fit all of your plot points but how about ‘The Halfmen of O’ by Maurice Gee. It includes a boy, a girl, a portal and an amulet.

  • Marisa says:

    Both those books sound good, but I don’t think either are the one I’m remembering.

  • Esk says:

    Ooh! I loved “The Halfmen of O” when I read it as a child in the 80s. Thanks for the lovely nostalgia, Barbara. Don’t think it fits though. It was set in New Zealand, something I found very memorable because it was so alien and far away-seeming. Also, I don’t think either the boy or the girl in it was dead or from an alternate universe/ dimension thingy.

    This story does sound really familiar, but I can’t think of a name. I’m no help, sorry!

  • Margaret in CO says:

    Jeremy, I thought of the Talisman too – but what I was thinking was actually “The Little Sisters of Eluria” – a little extra bit of the Gunslinger series. But I don’t think that’s right either. No dead girl, no boy. Maybe the librarian knows where that book is now – librarians are amazing.

  • Jeremy Preacher says:

    I think Little Sisters is too recent for that, too. Good call though. Steven King likes his chicks in pavilions, doesn’t he?

  • Marisa says:

    When I first was trying to find the book (which was only a few years after I first read it) I did check with the librarians, but no dice. It was shelved with juvenile fiction, not adult fiction, if that’s helpful to anyone…

  • Kirsten says:

    Any chance that it’s Diamond in the Window by Jane Langton?
    http://books.google.com/books?id=Oq_X7KJCBaoC&dq=diamond+in+the+window&source=gbs_navlinks_s

    But I don’t think there’s anything about a dead girl, so maybe not….

    She also wrote Swing in the Summerhouse (which is a pavilion, of sorts).

  • Marisa says:

    Nope, sorry. I wish I could remember more about this book – it’s so frustrating that I can’t track it down!

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