These were actually two youth novels I read as a kid, but I only need to find one to find the other, unfortunately I only remember enough detail from both books. They were a series involving a young boy who discovers that there is a world or dimension where all the things you lost wind up. For example, if you just misplaced your keys, it was because they actually wound up in this world, and they would be sent back, but usually ended up in a different place in our world. The world there is filled with lost junk.
I believe the title of the first book was just the name of this place “Other World” or something like it. I remember that at the end of the first book, he needs to send the world a milk carton. When he hears his mother say out loud that she can’t find her keys and she had just left them on the counter, he throws the milk carton at the spot where the keys were and the carton disappears into the other world. In fact, I think the cover of the novel had a floating milk carton with milk spilling out of it as if it were in space or something.
If it helps, in the sequel, he winds up back there, but with his annoying little brother, who likes carrying things in his pocket. There was something where a giant clock of some sort runs the entire dimension and without a stuffed bird that sits in a cuckoo nest in the clock, the clock won’t run and the world is doomed. In the end, he remembers that his little brother said the stuffed bird felt the same in his pocket as his favorite golf ball/putt putt ball, so the protagonist saves the day by putting a golf ball in the cuckoo’s nest.
Could be Un Lun Dun, by China Mieville.
I think this is “Finders Keepers” and its sequel “The Timekeeper” by Emily Rodda.
This sounds like ‘Finders Keepers’ and ‘The Timekeeper’ by Emily Rodda.
In ‘Finders Keepers,’ Patrick seems to be in luck when he’s invited to be on a television game show, “Finders Keepers.” The only problem is that there’s no such channel where he lives and there’s no such game show. But when the boy tunes in on Saturday morning, he’s pulled through the television into a parallel universe. There, he must decode the riddles of three “seekers” whose possessions have been lost through the barrier between the worlds. Patrick must go back to his world and return with the lost objects in order to win fabulous prizes (including the computer for which he yearns). He faces many dangers, and his ingenuity is tested as he plays the game. Patrick makes friends, rescues lost souls, and learns a little about the space-time continuum in this lively adventure. Family values are strong, and the solid realistic setting makes the fantasy element credible. Anyone who has ever wondered where odd socks go and why keys are so often not where they’ve been left will enjoy this time-travel story with a computer twist.
In ‘The Timekeeper,’ Patrick is literally racing against the clock to save the parallel world that exists on the other side of an invisible Barrier. When his new computer- through which he communicates with his friends in the other world-doesn’t work, he crosses over to get help. But something is wrong: the Barrier is falling apart on the other side, and on Patrick’s side, time is moving too fast. He learns that a special clock linking the two worlds has broken, and that he must repair it. But first, he must find his sister and brother, who have followed him with the vital missing piece of the broken clock.
Those are the two books! Thank you!