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I might be confusing two books here but I'm trying to find out the title of a novel I read when I was a child about a girl who found a new world by looking in (or falling in) a mere pool or pond? I can't remember the plot at all apart from that I'm fairly sure she had to save the world from something and that maybe talking animals were involved??

I remember very specifically that at one stage she is rescued by a fisherman who feeds her dried or smoked fish and carves her something from fish bone that she wears on what is described as a thong necklace or bracelet.

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    Up until the fisherman it was close to The Magician's Nephew from the Narnia series.
    – Radhil
    Commented Jun 21, 2017 at 14:57
  • Yes when I google all the bits I remember, all I get is the Wood between the Worlds references!
    – Carli__F
    Commented Jun 21, 2017 at 15:04
  • I think it's an owl that he carves her or she meets a talking/wise owl later...
    – Carli__F
    Commented Jun 21, 2017 at 15:08
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    Without nailing down those two characters (Portal Pool and Talking Animals are both pretty common tropes - combined, less so, which is why you keep getting Narnia stuff, but still...) this is going to be tough. Anything else you can remember about the fisherman, or the girl? Was the fisherman human, or other? When and where did you read this?
    – Radhil
    Commented Jun 21, 2017 at 15:42
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    The fisherman was human but as far as I can remember small, tanned and wrinkly! I'm pretty sure he carves her a white owl and this is something to do with the overriding plot - the white owl turns out to be who she needs to find. I feel like the owl is someone she knows or knew or met on her journey - either they transform into the owl or the owl transforms back into them. And she can tell from the owl's eyes that it's this person... ??
    – Carli__F
    Commented Jun 21, 2017 at 15:57

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As Radhil pointed out in a comment, might it be The Magician's Nephew?

Reading the synopsis on Wikipedia, apparently there is a lot more in the book than I remember reading long ago, but I distinctly remember the main characters jumping in pools to transport to different worlds. And, being a part of the Narnia series, there are definitely talking animals.

From Wikipedia's synopsis:

Digory finds himself transported to a sleepy woodland with an almost narcotic effect; he finds Polly nearby. The woodland is filled with pools. Digory and Polly surmise that the wood is not really a proper world at all but a "Wood between the Worlds", similar to the attic that links their rowhouses back in England, and that each pool leads to a separate universe. They decide to explore a different world before returning to England, and jump into one of the nearby pools. They then find themselves in a desolate abandoned city of the ancient world of Charn. Inside the ruined palace, they discover statues of Charn's former kings and queens, which degenerate from the fair and wise to the unhappy and cruel. They find a bell with a hammer, an inscription inviting the finder to strike the bell.

I do not remember anything about a fisherman nor a bone necklace/bracelet.

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    It's definitely not the MN but thank you!
    – Carli__F
    Commented Jun 21, 2017 at 15:14
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There are many similar themes in the book Through the Ice by Robert Kornwise and Piers Anthony.

The main character (who is male, not a girl as in your question) is transported to another world when he falls through ice into a pond. In that world, he has many adventures and deals with non-human characters (though I'm not sure if they were strictly animals).

Is it possible this book got conflated with The Magicians Nephew in your mind?

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  • I've not heard of this one so I don't think it's that, but thank you. It is very possible I am conflating two books in my head!
    – Carli__F
    Commented Jun 21, 2017 at 16:21

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