What's the Name of That Book??? discussion

Hi all--I'm looking for a novel I read sometime between 2002 and 2008. It was presumably YA fiction because of the age of the characters.

IIRC, the book was set in a small town/village in the U.S., perhaps California.

I'm not sure if the MC (main character) was male or female. They were in the final year of elementary/middle school, i.e., grade eight in the U.S. and Canada.

The MC was in a graduating class of three because there were so few students. One of their friends, and one of the few people of the same age around, was named Carla/Carmen.

Now, I may be conflating this novel with another one, but I believe the MC decides to go on a walk/hike but doesn't tell family/friends what they were doing. It's possible that the MC simply didn't think that anything would/could go wrong, or that they had a disagreement with someone and went in a huff.

The MC goes into an area with deep holes/pits, perhaps a cave/cavern or a mine, and end up falling in. They try jumping upwards with great effort in hopes of reaching the edge to pull themselves out, but realize that they're stuck. The MC concludes that they will wear themselves out if they continue and so have to find another solution.

[spoiler] I'm pretty sure the MC then somehow devises a way to escape and/or is found by someone else. [/spoiler]

Thanks in advance for your input.

I keep thinking of Going Through the Gate, but that's not really a good fit.

Was this another book you read in braille, or was it a print edition?

Rainbowheart wrote: "I keep thinking of Going Through the Gate, but that's not really a good fit.

Was this another book you read in braille, or was it a print edition?"

Alas, the book you mentioned isn't the one I'm looking for.

In this case, the novel was an audiobook on cassette. I'm not sure if the CNIB made the recording or a library/group in the U.S. did; I'd fairly often receive books in Braille or audio from the CNIB that had been obtained from partners in the U.S. or Britain.

I reviewed the list here--

https://www.librarything.com/list/558...

--and ruled out almost all of the items there. The only potential candidate, and not a likely one, was 'All the Dark Places' by J. Allan Bosworth.

I've also come across 'Trapped' by Judy Knox, which looks a bit more promising. However, I haven't found enough information online about the setting, plot, and characters to determine whether it's a match.

Google Books isn't accessible with my screen reader, so if it displays some or all pages of these or other novels, I can't browse them.

I'll keep looking!

Trapped appears to be a New Zealand book, and Worldcat doesn't show that it was ever put out on audio cassette, although curiously it was released in braille. Plot info is minimal, but it's about a little girl named Paula and her dog Zak who fall down a mine shaft.

All the Dark Places doesn't seem likely at all. Takes place in winter and there's no school graduation. Main character is a boy named Peter. I'm not seeing an audio version, either.

Banjo?

Not sure about a school graduation, but this was released by CNIB and has a boy falling into an abandoned mine shaft.