troubled girl able to go through portal

[Pollyanna]

I am trying to find a young adult novel I remember fondly; the character is a teenage girl who is in trouble, rebellious or disobedient, and she is chosen to test a portal that has appeared. Adults going through the portal all go crazy. There is something about her mental state that allows her to sort out the strangeness and she makes contact with the aliens and becomes the ambassador. Something like that!

 

[Pollyanna]

I remember something else. I believe that the portal appears when scientistsy reach absolute zero in the lab.

 

[Ursa major]

This is, I think, the fourth thread I've seen that has asked about this book. (Must have been popular; and I recall reading it in the early 70s.)


The book is likely to have been The Universe Between by Alan E. Nourse.

(Wikipedia states that the novel, The Universe Between (1965) is a fix-up of two novelettes: High Threshold (March 1951) and The Universe Between (September 1951), both published in Astounding.)

(Chrons member Cliffystones found this, by the way, not me.)

 

[Pollyanna]

Thank you! Of course that's it.
I'm sorry that I didn't see the earlier threads. It's a daunting task to look through them all. But I will pay attention now and perhaps pay it forward by helping someone else.

 

[Ursa major]

Don't worry about it, Pollyanna.

There are, I think, almost 1900 threads in Book Search and their titles, where they contain any information at all, are slanted towards what (little) the original posters can recall of the book for which they're searching.

Besides, I'm sure there must be other books where a girl has gone through a portal, so there was a chance that the other Nourse-related threads would have been of little use to you.

 

[Dave]

Besides, I'm sure there must be other books where a girl has gone through a portal.

The Northern Lights aka The Golden Compass, or at least, the two sequels.

 

[TheDustyZebra]

Don't worry about it, Pollyanna.

There are, I think, almost 1900 threads in Book Search and their titles, where they contain any information at all, are slanted towards what (little) the original posters can recall of the book for which they're searching.

And most of them are titled "Looking for a book".