The Vine: Ask The Readers Book-a-thon #7
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
Tags: Ask The Readers popcult
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.
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!
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.
Both those books sound good, but I don’t think either are the one I’m remembering.
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!
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.
I think Little Sisters is too recent for that, too. Good call though. Steven King likes his chicks in pavilions, doesn’t he?
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…
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).
Nope, sorry. I wish I could remember more about this book – it’s so frustrating that I can’t track it down!