SOLVED. YA, cave with an alternate universe/dimension/society, early 80's, purple and green cover of stalactites and stalagmites with creatures. [s]

[Dr Janice Flux]

ok, this is going to be vague.

i read this book sometime between '82 and '84 and i loved it, but i know i had to return it to the library before i finished it. i didn't get far enough into the story, but there were maybe some children who were looking/playing around in a cave or a mountain or something and they found a door to another dimension/universe/society where these creatures lived who now remind me of the blue meanies from yellow submarine, but i'm pretty sure the cover had them as green. but they were sort of roundish with long noses. and maybe some of them were in hot air balloons or otherwise flying? on the cover, that is. ugh, this is making me crazy.

i think the creatures in the other society/dimension were nice, but maybe they had enemies? all i know is that there were problems and the kids had to help, or they had to leave. i can't remember.

i was always so sad that i couldn't finish this book. it may have been more pre-teen than young adult, but i remember it as being quite long. maybe because i didn't get through it.

[Cambridge47]

this book sounds sort of like the one I am looking for.
It was a YA sci-fi/fantasy book I read when I was a kid. I beleive it came out in hardcover in the US in or around 1988. It was about 12 boys sent to a military/reform school, I think the school was called Kah Nagallah or something like that. I seem to remember that the story was told from the POV of a boy who was being sent to the school with his adopted brother, who was autistic. The faculty trained secretly trained the boys to go on a mission to a subterranean kindgdom to retrieve a powerful object, I think it was called the Vroon. The boys started calling themselves 'the Coyotes' and their symbol was a nautilus shell with an arrow through it. The boys escape the control of the faculty and recover the Vroon for themselves and use it for good.
The book was long, over 300 pages I think. It had some b&w illustrations. The cover art was a drawing of the boys riding in a tracked vehicle with a dome through a cavern. Do you think this is the book you are looking for? If it is have you found any info about it?

[Lobstergirl, au gratin]

Janice, are you still looking for this book?

[Dr Janice Flux]

Hi!

Yes, I am. I actually didn't see the first response above, but that doesn't sound like it, if only because I don't think it had anything to do with a military or reform school. I haven't been able to find my book, but I know I don't have much information about it.

[Ann aka Iftcan]

Janice--if you come back periodically and bump up your thread, you'll have a higher chance of getting it found. THe usual period is bumping it once monthly to once quarterly.

[Cojo]

Janice - this sounds similar to the book I've been looking for. Your post actually popped up while I was searching. Was it "The Boy Who Reversed Himself"? There were two kids in this book who traveled to another dimension and got stuck/abducted by creatures (I remember them as purple, but's its been a long time).

[Dr Janice Flux]

Cojo wrote: "Janice - this sounds similar to the book I've been looking for. Your post actually popped up while I was searching. Was it "The Boy Who Reversed Himself"? There were two kids in this book who trave..."

this is the closest thing i've found, but it looks like it may have come out a few years after i remember seeing it. still, maybe my memory is faulty. i will have to do some more research. I'll keep you posted.

the funny thing is that i read and loved "into the dream" by the same author at about the same time, so it's very likely. Thank you!

[Lobstergirl, au gratin]

Still looking, Janice?

[Sarah]

Could it possibly have been the The Secret World of Og, by Pierre Berton?

[Dr Janice Flux]

Sarah wrote: "Could it possibly have been the The Secret World of Og, by Pierre Berton?"

I think it is! It's the closest thing I've seen. I can't find a cover image that looks exactly like the one I have in mind, but the story synopsis sounds dead on. I'll see if I can get a copy and then confirm it. Thank you!!!