Through 'The Forgotten Door' and Onto a Road Not Taken: Into the Archives

The Forgotten Door, by Alexander Key (1963; this is the 48^th reprint by Scholastic). Cover by Rafal Olbinski.

Little Jon is a boy who has fallen through a Forgotten Door and landed on a strange planet called Earth. Although he has lost much of his memory in the transition, there are still elements of this world that seem familiar to him. As the kind family that takes him in soon learn, though, he is no ordinary little boy – in this world. He displays weird powers of telepathy, even being able to communicate with animals. Soon he is facing small town prejudices and worse, the interest of the government and military who want to exploit and weaponize his powers. Can he still find his way back home through the Forgotten Door before he is trapped?

I continue with my strange fascination with the works of Alexander Key, which began as far back as fourth grade with Rivets and Sprockets. His most famous work is, of course, Escape to Witch Mountain (1968), which has been made into a movie three times. I must confess a nostalgic preference for the 1975 Disney version with Eddie Albert; this is the one I would probably want to watch, if any. The Forgotten Door is obviously in the same vein as Escape, with a gentle well-meaning visitor to the planet menaced by ignorance, fear, greed, and the Establishment, a theme as old as the Incarnation and as recent as E. T.

I can’t quite tell when this edition came out. Scholastic began reprinting it in 1986, but the condition and logos make me think this is a more recent vintage. The cover art is by Rafal Olbinski, a Polish artist now 80 years old and living in the US, famous for his magazine and book covers as well as the ‘poetic surrealism’ of his major works of art. As far as book titles go, ‘The Forgotten Door’ rings all the right bells in my head. I am looking forward to a quick and enjoyable ‘summer read’ and a plunge into the Alternative Childhood.