''Under Plum Lake'' is a children's

adventure An adventure is an exciting experience or undertaking that is typically bold, sometimes risky. Adventures may be activities with danger such as traveling, exploring, skydiving, mountain climbing, scuba diving, river rafting, or other extreme spo ...

novel by

Lionel Davidson Lionel Davidson FRSL (31 March 192221 October 2009) was an English novelist who wrote spy thrillers. Life and career Lionel Davidson was born in 1922 in Hull in Yorkshire, one of nine children of an immigrant Jewish tailor. He left school ...

, first published in 1980.

Plot

A young boy, Barry, explores a cave on the

Cornwall Cornwall (; kw, Kernow ) is a historic county and ceremonial county in South West England. It is recognised as one of the Celtic nations, and is the homeland of the Cornish people. Cornwall is bordered to the north and west by the Atlantic ...

coast and discovers a highly advanced subterranean civilization called Egon. Located somewhere deep beneath Earth's oceans, Egon is unknown and inaccessible to humans unless an Egonian chooses to bring them there. On all such occasions, the human being's memories of Egon are erased and replaced with false memories before being returned to the surface. In Egon, the author imagines all of our social ills and fears have been quieted, health care and education have been vastly improved, and energy and other resources have been better managed. Egonian youth (who are about 100 years old) spend much of their time enjoying extreme sports, taking in intense immersive films, and studying to make their world a better place. Barry gets a tour from a boy named Dido who at first treats Barry like a dog — why can't he just relax and enjoy things? — but later begins to understand Barry’s fear of pain and death. Like Barry, the reader is ultimately left with a vision of what our lives could be if we didn't spend all our time terrified of poverty, pain, and lost chances. It's a statement in favor of pleasure, intimacy, and risk-taking.

Reception

Kirkus Reviews ''Kirkus Reviews'' (or ''Kirkus Media'') is an American book review magazine founded in 1933 by Virginia Kirkus (1893–1980). The magazine is headquartered in New York City. ''Kirkus Reviews'' confers the annual Kirkus Prize to authors of fic ...

'' characterised it as "a little tale, somewhere between fantasy and science fiction, that's less-than-magical yet more than nicely told", written by an author "whose oddly conceived books are usually--like this one--less than fully satisfying."

References

1980 British novels British children's novels Novels set in Cornwall Jonathan Cape books Children's fantasy novels British fantasy novels 1980 children's books Children's books set in Cornwall {{1980s-child-novel-stub