Mary Q. Steele (1922–1992)

A boy who has lived his entire life on a raft on a river which flows in a circle through a vast collection of underground caves accidentally finds a way out into the world and goes on a journey of discovery.
This is easily the most philosophical Newbery Honor Book I've ever read; think Plato's Cave for middle grade readers. And you know? It works. Happily recommended.

Journey Outside is a strange, wonderful, and surprising tale of a young man's quest to find truth, beauty, and a "better place" for his grandfather, father, and the rest of his underground river Raft People.

Dilar's journey leads to encounters with an unusual range of people, from the living nearly-dead to a wonderful female friend who will miss him and on to a deceitful bird feeder and a wily self-serving goatherd
who may have offered the elusive truth.

While the story is gently compelling, it show more is the beauty of the Rocco Negri woodcuts that raises the quality of the book. show less

Grandfather said they were headed for the Better Place, but Dilar suspected they were headed nowhere, simply following the dark underground river blindly. And so one night he leaped onto a shelf of rock and watched the flotilla of the Raft People disappear. And from there he found his way Outside, into a world so beautiful and strange he could only suppose he had died - a world of day, and sun, of trees and sky.

Dilar lives on a raft with his family, in a convoy of rafts that drifts along an underground river. Supposedly the rafts are headed for a "better place," but they never get there, and Dilar starts wondering if they aren't just going in a big circle. This thought consumes him until he hops off the raft onto the riverbank and watches his whole life float away.

He starts climbing up the cave walls and eventually makes it to the surface of the earth, where he gorges himself on peaches and gets a show more bad subnburn when he falls asleep. A young sheperdess takes him home and for a time he lives with her family. In this society, people are very generous and the concept of private property is comfortably lax, but no one plans ahead for anything. They don't even save firewood for the winter.

When Dilar hears that wise men who can answer any question live over the mountains and far away, he decides to set out looking for them. He meets and stays with many people in many types of societies, each wise but flawed in their own ways: a man who spends his days cooking pancakes for animals, desert people who suck on cactus flesh all day, and finally, a mischevious goatherd who (kind of) answers Dilar's questions about the Raft People, and more importantly, what he should do next.

The Journey Outside was a solid piece of kid's literature, but the whole of the book didn't quite live up to the potential of the premise. The most interesting part (Dilar questioning his upbringing and leaving the rafts) was over in the first few pages. The rest of it was an interesting allegory, but I would have liked to see what happens when/if Dilar decides to go back to his people. As it was, I felt the story was not adequately wrapped up. show less