The Door in the Lake

VOYA - Ann Bouricius

Two years ago, while on a camping trip with his family, twelve-year-old Joey disappeared. Now he has returned. He can't remember what happened to him, he has a persistent runny nose, and, most unsettling of all, he has not aged. Though Joey tries to ease back into his life, he finds he's become a celebrity in his town--the boy who was kidnapped. His best friend, now two years older, has a new group of friends, and Joey has a new baby sister. Then Joey begins having seizures and, along with them, strange bits of visions. Suddenly, finding out what happened to him becomes the most important thing in Joey's life. His quest leads him to two college students who believe he was abducted by aliens. As strange as this seems, Joey comes to believe it is the most likely answer. Finally, he risks his life to find the truth. Butts has written a page turner with some well-developed characters whose decisions cause them to change and grow. We cheer for Joey when he is determined to return to school, and we ache with him when he finds that his friends no longer want to be seen with him. We feel the desperation that drives him to track down a college student slightly reminiscent of a young Fox Mulder. While the ending is a little too pat--Joey is returned to his life at the moment he left it two years ago--The Door in the Lake is a good choice to recommend to readers who are just beginning to read science fiction, or to young people who want books with a psychological aspect. VOYA Codes: 4Q 3P M J (Better than most, marred only by occasional lapses, Will appeal with pushing, Middle School-defined as grades 6 to 8 and Junior High-defined as grades 7 to 9).

Children's Literature - Gisela Jernigan

When 12 year old Jocy mysteriously disappeared over two years ago during a family camp-out at the lake, his parents never gave up hope that he would be found someday. As this suspenseful science fiction novel begins, Jocy returns just as mysteriously, looking no older than when he left and having only vague, disturbing snatches of memories of a strange light in the sky over the lake. How Jocy, with the help of two college students interested in the paranormal and his sometimes resentful younger brother, finally manages to solve this mystery, makes for a fast-moving tale that should appeal to readers who relish the idea of alien abduction.

School Library Journal

Gr 4-7The last thing 12-year-old Joey remembers is that he got up in the middle of the night and headed to the restrooms just down the path from where his tent was pitched. The next thing he knows he's in the hospital after collapsing in a convenience store, being told by everyone how glad they are to have him back and that he's been gone for over two years. Joey can't tell them where he might have been or why he hasn't grown at all. Then the seizures start and Joey begins to remember what happened to him on that summer night. By chance, he gets an e-mail through one of the electronic bulletin boards for missing children that his mother has been on, and he tracks down a couple of college students who have a theory about what may have happened to himone that his returning memories supportthat he was abducted by aliens. The action and resolution of the story are fairly compressed and taut, and as for the believabilitywho's to say?we're talking alien abduction here, but the details are convincingly written. A few scenes with Joey's old best friend, who is now too cool to talk to him, and his now bigger, younger brother add the right pangs of adolescent angst. But one must question the author's wisdom in allowing her young character to pedal off on his bike to meet someone he's met on-line, purposefully concealing it from his parents. Although this book is a quick and exciting read, be aware that this one element can all too often lead to tragedy in the real world.Carrie Schadle, New York Public Library

Kirkus Reviews

In a story that young X-Files fans will snap up, and which in its basic premise follows that of the movie, The Flight of the Navigator, Joey suddenly disappears from a lakeside camp and reappears just as mysteriously two years later, to find himself with a baby sister, a younger brother who's bigger than he is, and friends who have moved on in their lives. Joey has only vague memories of a great spiral of light, a shadowy presence, and a sound like wind chimes, all of which he keeps to himself, not wanting to be thought crazy. Joey's efforts to recreate a normal life go awry when, first, his version of events gets out, and second, an insistent voice in his head begins urging him to return to the lake. Although the plot is disjointed and contrivance- driven, Joey's feeling of dislocation, and the discomfort others feel in his presence, is credibly presented, and the climactic scene, in which the alien appears to convey Joey back to the time and place from which he vanished, features the requisite glaring lights, odd gravitational effects, and weird atmosphere. Butts (Cheshire Moon, 1996) doesn't try too hard to answer questions or maintain her story's internal logic, but it's rare to find stories for young people about closer encounters that aren't played for laughs. (Fiction. 11-13)