Andrew Lansdown
Scholastic
Fiction, YA Fantasy
***
Beyond the Open Door (Apple Paperbacks) (Original Title: With My Knife)
Beyond the Open Door
Andrew Lansdown
Scholastic
Fiction, YA Fantasy
***
Beyond the Open Door (Apple Paperbacks) (Original Title: With My Knife)
DESCRIPTION: Young Colyn is digging potatoes with his father when he finds an unusual knife. He soon discovers it has many strange properties. It cuts through wood like butter, but it won't harm him. Peeling potatoes with it turns the tubers into stone; hurling stone potato slices into the air makes them into hovering lights. Perhaps the strangest thing about his little knife is that cutting triangular holes with it makes windows into another world, a world of mist, strangeness, and a menacing yellow eye that stares back at him from beyond. When he cuts a window large enough to walk through, trouble starts, since the door that lets him enter the other world just may let the dark dragons from that realm enter ours.
REVIEW: I picked this up for a buck and a half at a discount book store. The story moved fairly quickly, leaving not too much unexplained. In the end, I was fairly satisfied with the story, what there was of it. Definitely worth a buck and a half, but I'm not sure about full price. My main objection is that it felt like it needed a sequel. Otherwise, it's not a bad little book. It's just not a great little one.
You might also enjoy:
The Everworld series (K. A. Applegate, YA Fiction - Four Chicago teens are transported to a world where elder-day gods still exist)
The Ancient One (T. A. Barron, YA Fiction - An ancient redwood transports a girl into the past)
Faerie Wars (Herbie Brennan, YA Fiction - A boy who finds a faerie prince in his garden travels to other worlds)
Magic Kingdom For Sale - Sold! (Terry Brooks, Fiction - A burned-out lawyer buys a magic kingdom from a catalog)
Dragon Companion (Don Callander, Fiction - Mysteriously transported from a subway to a magic world, a librarian is befriended by a dragon)
The Wiz Biz books (Rich Cook, Fiction - A Silicon Valley programmer ends up in a world of wizards and magic)
The Dragon and the George (George R. Dickson, Fiction - A man is transported to an alternate medieval era, into the body of a dragon)
Magician: Apprentice (Raymond E. Feist, Fiction - An orphan boy in a frontier castle faces otherworldly armies)
The Stoneheart trilogy (Charlie Fletcher, YA Fiction - A boy discovers a hidden world just beneath the skin of everyday London)
The Inkheart trilogy (Cornelia Fuke, YA Fiction - The ability to read people out of and into books creates trouble for a bookbinder and his daughter)
The Chrestomanci books and The Merlin Conspiracy (Diana Wynne Jones, YA Fiction - Magicians regularly travel between various worlds and times)
The Book of Story Beginnings (Kristin Kladstrup, YA Fiction - Writing in a special notebook makes stories come to life)
The Chronicles of Narnia (C. S. Lewis, YA Fiction - Children from our world travel to magical Narnia, ruled by the Lion Aslan)
The Pendragon series (D. J. MacHale, YA Fiction - A boy finds himself travelling other dimensions to fight an evil, corruptive force)
Un Lun Dun (China Miéville, YA Fiction - A girl and her best friend travel to the "abcity" mirror of London)
The Chronicles of the Imaginarium Geographica (James A. Owen, YA Fiction - Three English men, destined to be famed authors, travel to the magical Archipelago of Dreams, inspiration for myth and story since prehistory)
The Transall Saga (Gary Paulsen, YA Fiction - A modern boy's survival skills get the ultimate test when he finds himself suddenly in a strange and alien world)
The 100 Cupboards trilogy (N. D. Wilson, YA Fiction - A boy finds magical little doors to other worlds behind the plaster of his bedroom wall)
The Castle in the Attic (Elizabeth Winthrop, YA Fiction - A boy magically travels into an old toy castle)
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