hey guys. recently i've been haunted by a book i read, oh, eleven years ago when i was in sixth or seventh grade. i recently read coraline and the phantom image of this book has been lingering over my head day and night. so i google'd book forum and here i am. hopefully one of y'all can help me identify this book?

details are really sketchy, and i bet my description will relate to hundreds of books. but here's what i know:

- book was published in/before 1996
- book has something to do with a kid who finds a passage to another world/dream world/parallel universe, finds a bunch of monsters/creatures/nightmarish type things. boy escapes said world to his own world, which is now completely desolate of human life. nightmarish creatures appear back in his own world, as there's some sort of wizard who tells him he can't escape... something.
- book is for middle school kids.
- before each chapter there are really inky, creepy sketches setting up the proceeding chapter (similar to coraline's style)
- tone is, overall, pretty creepy.

that's all i remember. worst description ever. actually i'm almost convinced this isn't a real book, and i just took familiar themes from other books and had a really vivid dream. anyone have ANY clues to the book's title?

This reminds me very much of Clive Barker's work. I haven't read it yet, but could you be remembering his 1992 novel, The Thief of Always?

this actually seems pretty promising. i'm gonna thumb through this book to see if it jogs my memory. thanks much.

i gotta say i'm pretty impressed. that was the book. i don't know how the hell you managed to figure it out on the first shot without even reading it. but i thank you, billy c. you're a good man. a good man.

Thanks, but it's luck mostly. Your description of a creepy, nightmarish alternate world just reminded me a lot of Cabal, Weaveworld,and Imajica. But you said it was for middle schoolers. I checked to see whether Barker had any pre-1996 YA novels, and The Thief of Always was the only candidate. The description on Amazon sounded like it might match, so I suggested it.

If you like it, I'd recommend his other works. In particular, if you like the marriage of text and Barker's illustrations, try Abarat.

check. will do. thanks again.

Hey, that's cool! I never knew Clive Barker wrote middle school stuff - I mean with young kids as protagonists. I've only read Weaveworld and The Great and Secret Show. Cool, I'll check this out. According to google, it's gonna be made into a film next year, 2010.