John Bellairs Sending Shivers Down My Spine
Yesterday evening I found myself in the Park Slope Barnes and Noble. Let me tell you this – if you’d like to browse young adult fiction, you can’t pick a better place than this particular location during the dinner hour. It was deserted, and the selection is amazing.
So I’m wandering through the book stacks looking at things that catch my eye when, all of the sudden, I saw it. It was as though there was a glow around it, beckoning my attention. If it were a movie, there would have been that push/pull zoom trick cutting between me and the book cover. It was The Best of John Bellairs, a hardcover compilation of the books The House with a Clock in Its Walls, The Figure in the Shadows, and The Letter, the Witch and the Ring. And I wanted it.
John Bellairs was my favorite author as a kid, and The House with a Clock in its Walls was my favorite book. This particular collection of young adult gothic novels follows Lewis Barnavelt, an orphan (…always an orphan…) who goes to live with his mysterious Uncle Jonathan. He quickly discovers that Uncle Jonathan is a wizard, and next door neighbor Mrs. Zimmerman is a witch. And magic and mystery ensues.
For over 25 years, I’ve been carrying around in my head the unforgettable image of Lewis trying his hand at magic in The House with a Clock in its Walls. To try to impress his new friend, Tarby, Lewis attempts to raise the dead.
He stopped. Tarby, who was crouched beside him, grabbed his arm and squeezed it hard. From deep within the tomb came a sound. Boom! A deep hollow sound. The iron doors jolted, as if they had been struck by a blow from inside. The chain rattled, and there was a clunk on the pavement. The padlock had fallen off. And now, as the boys knelt, terrified, two small spots of freezing gray light appeared. They hovered and danced before the doors of the tomb, which now stood ajar. And something black-blacker than the night, blacker than ink spilled into water-was oozing from the space between the doors.
Hand this book to your little Harry Potter-philes and see what they think!
I’m constantly looking for other fans of John Bellairs. Somehow, few of my peers have every heard of him, and this is tragic. Then today I discovered the website Bellairsia, and now I’ve found my community. Hello, friends.
I can’t wait to give this book to Olive in a few years when the time is right, sharing some of my fondest reading memories.
