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Community => General Discussion => Topic started by: Steelclaw on July 12, 2013, 12:12:55 AM
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I am about to begin the process of writing a book and have a small research question with which you can all help me...
I need books in which a child or small group of children traveled to another world...
Guidelines:
1) MUST take place in a book... no movies, tv shows, etc.
2) The world's location should be unexplained or unknown.
3) HOW the children made the journey (eg-the actual physics of it) should be undeclared or, at best, "magic"
4) ALL the adventures should take place in this land... no short visits like the chalk drawing in Mary Poppins...
The ones I have so far are:
Narnia (The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe)
Wizard of Oz
Alice in Wonderland
Peter Pan and Neverland
Does anyone know of any other famous or semi-famous stories involving this?
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The Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wonderful_Flight_to_the_Mushroom_Planet) by Eleanor Cameron and A Wrinkle In Time (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Wrinkle_in_Time) by Madeleine L'engle are two that come off the top of my head. Both start series.
Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_and_the_Great_Glass_Elevator) by Roald Dahl might fit the bill, too. It's the sequel to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
The Phantom Tollbooth (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Phantom_Tollbooth) by Norton Juster
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Thanks much!
I have read Wrinkle in Time and Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator but didn't include them because in both cases you KNOW that the world is an actual planet rather than a magical type realm. Also the means of getting there is explained... the Tesseract in Wrinkle and the Elevator for Charlie.
I'll check out the other two though... thanks again!
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Brave Story (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brave_Story), by Miyuki Miyabe
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Would Where the Wild Things Are qualify? It's a super short story. /em ponder
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The Last of the Really Great Wangdoodles by Julie Edwards (aka Julie Andrews).
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A Wrinkle in Time series.
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Does 'Bridge to Terabithia' count?
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How about The Wee Free Men (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wee_Free_Men) and The Child Thief (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Child_Thief).
The later is a darker and edgier (http://DarkerAndEdgier) version of Peter Pan.
Also, you might want to take a look into the Changeling: The Lost (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Changeling:_The_Lost) core rule book, which while not specifically concernded with children still could give you an idea or two.
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I do believe the original novel of "The Neverending Story" involves just such a scenario, with the second half of the book comprising Bastian's visit to Fantastica, though through what methods I honestly can't recall. This might be a bit too book-ception though with a book about a magic book that someone visits being mentioned/used somehow in ANOTHER book. :p
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It may not quite qualify, particularly because a later novel made it clear that at least one destination (the one in that later novel) is a different planet, but So You Want To Be A Wizard might have something to help out.
You may also find some use in various Xanth novels, though again, we know Xanth has a portal-connection to Earth in the FL panhandle.
Tennis Shoes Amongst the Nephites (or maybe "among," I can't quite recall right now) you know it's time travel and it's fairly clear in context that God was responsible for the transposition, but still it might serve for some ideas.
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Some other movies, like The Pagemaster, also came from books. I also read one as a preteen called The Bunjee Venture (sp?) that was a fantasy time-travel (fantastic prehistory, playing fast and loose with paleontology) adventure.
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Thanks to everyone for all the excellent suggestions!
I'll start doing the research on the ones with which I'm unfamiliar. I'm sure at least some of them will be perfect for what I have in mind and hopefully their intellectual property owners will give me permission to use them should this ever get published.
Thanks again!
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I dunno if you need any more suggestions, but in the interest of sharing a book I enjoyed when I was younger...
The Transall Saga (http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/transall-saga-gary-paulsen/1100619239?ean=9780375873232)
Despite what the name implies, it's only one book.
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Stephen King-The Talisman...May not meet all the needs.
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It may take awhile to dredge every such story I've read up from the depths of my mind but got one that does not quite fit but is close enough I'm putting it in "The Magic Meadow" Alexander Key (author of witch mountain and the forgotten door).
Just one book and sadly out of print. Its a wish fulfillment story that starts with a bunch of long term resident kids in a hospital that is about to be closed. They are about to be sent to different hospitals and they all dream about this special place where they can walk and be outside then one of them manages to go there and suddenly he can move a little. Somehow they can go to this place and it gradually heals them but may contain danger...time is running out before the closure so they prove it to some of their immediate staff and hatch an escape plan....then explore the new world. The story does kinda explain where (and when) they are toward the end, a future preserve, but doesn't really explain why it provides magic healing or how they were able to wish really hard and get there.
Midnighters is another maybe. - Kids born at midnight can enter a secret hour where everyone else is frozen and the monsters come out to play and they get a usually double-edged power and rarely fit in well with other kids because they aren't quite of this world. You do know what the world is but the rest is weakly explained though containing internal logic
The Dark is Rising Series - Is another maybe 5 kids in various combinations go into other times, weird waking dream states, and deal with myths come to life. Some books fit better then others but 5 kids are featured, there is magic, the other realm stuff is less common in the books with the drew children and more common in those featuring will stanton and bran.
The neverending story (book - peter s. beagle)
There was a recent series (yes I occasionally still read YA along with many other books) about an entire world for children who become ghosts...possible movie coming...I'm blanking on the name and author...three books
Plenty of YA material in dragon riders of Pern (Anne McCaffery founded the series her harper hall series (sub series of pern books) is YA some of the more recent work was written or co-written with her son Todd...she died recently) they start from earth and go to a world with teleporting and time traveling dragons which they engineered with lost tech from a native life form its complicated....only some of the books are YA. The author insisted it was science fiction, some called it fantasy...I use science fantasy.
While talking about young people in magical other realms you may wish to check out the work of Mercedes Lackey, some of her books qualify there...can't think of any 100% qualifies though.
Segev mentioned Xanth and I would also consider one of the books from the apprentice adept series Flach & Nepe become quite active late in the series along with some of the others of the next generation and are children.
If you want characters that start in another world this list gets way longer...lol?
Do you want stories that contain teens or young adults?
I will sleep on it...i know there are more exact matches out there.
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"Tunnel in the Sky" by Heinlein might qualify, about a group of young people (highschoolish age) who have to survive on an unknown world?
By mentioning Xanth, I gotta also pony up the "Apprentace Adept" series by Piers Anthony, as it has an alternate world theme with an odd boundry between the two worlds, Proton and Phaze, but there's no kids until maybe later in the series.