Stranger from the Depths, by Gerry Turner, 1967. Abridged version 1970.

This was my favorite book for much of my childhood (until about 8th grade). I read the Scholastic abridged version a kajillion times. At least a couple dozen. One of the only science fiction books of my youth whose cover & blurb truthfully advertised what lay inside.

Here’s the blurb on the back:

“Look!” says Gary, as they climb down the cliff. “In that dark opening over there … something gleaming.”

“It’s a tiny statue!” exclaims his brother. “It looks like a lizard man… and I think it’s made of diamond!”

Where has the statue come from? Who made it? The answers lead Gary and his brother into terrifying adventures in a world of fantastic people — miles beneath the ocean floor!

This book, which has a utopian underwater city, and a Jules Verne-like trip to a Dystopian city at the center of the earth, and here’s the best part: two boys who drive around in a jeep, go scuba diving, and don’t have any parents, would make a great movie for kids, or maybe the basis of a cartoon series.

I lost my copy long ago, but recently acquired this one using the Interwebs. This particular version has a pretty good flipbook animation added to the outer margins credited to “Harris Productions”.

* * *

On a related note, I would dearly love to do a coverpop of favorite out-of-print childhood books, but I would need a good collection of covers to make this. If you know of any good resources, leave a comment.

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 18th, 2006 at 5:54 pm and is filed under Good reads, Idle Yams. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.