Hmmm. The closest story to that I can recall at the moment is Dread Companion by Andre Norton. It involves two children and their young governess being pulled into a world that is clearly the basis of the legends of Faerie. The children start being transformed into “the Folk” and losing their memory, and the governess has to figure out how to rescue them. The “dread companion” of the title is the lady “imaginary friend” of the girl child, who is neither imaginary nor all that friendly.
I was thinking the first but both fit.
You may be right in what he intended, but
I think Fred (and Cordelia, and the rest fo the FangGang) going to Pylea is a better comparison. Conner was less than six months old when he was kidnapped; he’d have no memory of his first life on Earth. If anything, his leaving the Hell dimension and coming to Earth is like the Pevensies’ trek to Narnia, except that he never left.
The Grossman book was the one that popped into my mind. There are other books where someone goes into a dark or at least dangerous otherworld, including Coraline by Gaiman,* The Keys to the Kingdom* series by Garth Nix, The Last Rune series by Mark Anthony, and The War of the Flowers, by Tad Williams.
I’ve just started Guy Gavriel Kay’s Fionavar Tapestry, which seems to be heading in that direction, though I’m just at the very beginning of it.
People from this world getting transported to another is a really popular theme. I know there are lots of books I’m forgetting.
But I also feel like there’s a subtle difference the OP is looking for?
The Bible.
You, of course, voiding your bowels, but I’ll pretend you’re not. There’s no world jumping in the Bible (the concept didn’t even exist when the various books were written, I wager) and very few child protagonists. Save the similarity of LW&W to parts of the Gospels, there’s no real correspondence.
Oh, I remembered another one, The Book of Lost Things, by John Connolly. I think it compares well to Narnia, because although it’s a recent book, it really has the feel of a mid-century children’s fantasy novel. The world in that one is quite dark – it’s definitely dark when the protagonist arrives, it’s possible that there have been other times in the history of that world where it wasn’t so dark.
Coraline came to my mind as well. Also, Wrinkle in Time.
I did in fact mean the other one, but you’re right that your version fits better.
I wonder if Homeward Bounders by Diana Wynne Jones would count. Except that they move from world to world, rather staying in the one place. The worlds aren’t particularly bad as such either, but I think the conclusion is quite dark, particularly for a children’s book. Can’t go into that without spoiling, though.
It’s one of my favourite fantasy books ever. DWJ is so underrated.
Pretty much the whole Hellraiser franchise, films and graphic novels, involves people (sometimes kids) being suddenly and unexpectedly drawn into a very dark and cruel universe.
Magic Street by Orson Scott Card fits a bit, though it is mostly a " Oberon and Titania meet modern black USA middle class" story.
Reckless, by Cornelia Funke, has that ‘dark otherworld’ feel to it, much like if Narnia were populated by the original Grimms’ brothers’ characters.
It’s supposed to be the first of a 2 or 3 parter, and it isn’t an amazing book, but it’s decent, and a more direct analogy than say Inkheart, where the adventures are either brought into being directly in this world, or supposedly inside a book, instead of being in a distinct place of their own.
In Reckless, there’s most assuredly an alternate place - but the Narnian artifact of time not passing in the ‘home realm’ or people reverting to childhood when they return aren’t there.
Coming in late because I just found this thread via a link.
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke had characters who were lost in a dark fairy land.
Angel Down, Sussex by Kim Newman had a girl returning from fairy land after being missing for fifty years.
A child being lost for years in fairy land was also mentioned in Soon I Will Be Invincible by Austin Grossman but it was not a major part of the story.
In Marvel comics, the character Illyana Rasputin was the six year old sister of a superhero. In one book, she was momentarily caught in another dimension. But while she only appeared to have been there for a few seconds, she had aged seven years when she emerged. A mini-series Magik (written by Chris Claremont) later showed what happened to her during those seven years.
I just read some of L’Engle’s works. Her followups to A Wrinkle in Time are very dark, particularly An Acceptable Time. Definitely worth reading, though, and I wonder why she isn’t better known for all her writings, not just Wrinkle.
What I found particularly odd is that, in a fantasy intended as an atheist antidote to Narnia, theism is portrayed as very much correct in substance:
There really is an afterlife - albeit a horrible one - and there really is a “god” - albeit he’s senile; and there realy are angels - albeit, they are the bad guys (mostly).
In short, the book is premised not so much on atheism as on a sort of gnosticism.
It reminds me of the conversation that starts out The Master and Margarita, where an (atheist) poet is being lectured by a Soviet bureaucrat about what was wrong with his “official atheist” poems - that they portrayed Jesus as a bad guy, which was all very well but quite different fromn portraying him as non-existent.
I also thought of A Wrinkle in Time. More science-fictiony, but definite resemblance.
This isn’t an exact fit, and I know there is a lot of hate for Rose Madder, but the thing I liked about the book was the alternate world and the painting that was its portal. I found the other world very atmospheric, and going through a painting is a lot like going through the wardrobe. Now, no kids or time slipping involved, but it’s the first thing that came to mind after reading the OP.
I believe the movie version was called “The Narn” and it starred Diana Ross, Nipsey Russell, Ted Ross and Michael Jackson as the four kids.
Shouldn’t that be “The Lan”?
Speaking of Hellraiser, Clive Barker did wrote the Abarat series of YA books about a girl being transported to a scary alternate universe.
Not really all that dark, but there you go.