Journey Outside (Newbery Library, Puffin)

A Newbery Honor book This fast-paced story is more than an adventure--it is a search for answers in a bewildering world that is as terrifying as it is beautiful. 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. "A highly successful work that can be read as an adventure story, a fantasy, or as allegory"-- School Library Journal