Beyond the Open Door
Andrew Lansdown
Scholastic
Fiction, CH Fantasy
Themes: Dragons, Portal Adventures
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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.
Originally titled With My Knife.
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 - it felt like it wanted to start a series, or at least a trilogy. Definitely worth a buck and a half, but I'm not sure about full price. It's not a bad little book, but it's just not a great little one.