John Bellairs Review

The Face in the Frost

2012-05-17T17:16:00.004-06:00

Review: The Face in the Frost
from Dreaming About Other Worlds

Unlike many of the door stoppers produced today, in which multiple ponderous seven hundred page tomes advance their story in halting baby steps, The Face in the Frost establishes its setting, its characters, and its villain as well as establishing and resolving its conflict in under two hundred. Many modern writers would do well to look back upon Bellairs' work and see how he managed to create such a memorable story in so many fewer pages.

The House with a Clock in its Walls

2012-05-03T18:06:00.004-06:00

Review: The House with a Clock in its Walls
by nataliejoan @ One book per week

I absolutely loved this book and wish I could have read it years ago. I was that kid who loved to scare herself silly – and this would have done it. It’d not just a spooky mystery story – this is gothic horror for kids. Absolute terror mixed in with characters calling each other “hag face” and “weird beard.”

The House with a Clock in Its Walls

2012-02-22T11:03:00.000-06:00

Review: The House with a Clock in Its Walls
from Lady Pudding Post

I think a big reason I could even read this book at all is because Bellairs was such a good writer and created such human, relatable characters. You can’t help but feel for Lewis, especially over his misguided friendship with the totally not worth it Tarby - a friendship that leads him to wake the dead. Kids do such crazy things to fit in, no?

The House with a Clock in its Walls

2012-01-20T21:30:00.001-06:00

Old Book, New Author
Evan Munday from the National Post

I’ve been dropping the name “John Bellairs” into casual conversation lately. To many, it means nothing. But to people of a certain age — men in particular — the name makes their eyes light up like I’ve just mentioned their favourite Thundercat. (Panthro, in most cases.)

The Dolphin Cross

2011-12-24T16:09:00.000-06:00

Review: The Dolphin Cross
by the Big Bad Bald Bastard

Much of the manuscript is a prison narrative, with Prospero alternately killing time, and devising a means to escape from his captivity.

So, for much of the narrative, our protagonist sits in lonely exile on a tiny, remote island, until he is able to escape with the aid of a magical MacGuffin which he finds when he makes a thorough search of his environs.

The published draft of this, the first third of the book, is a tantalizing glimpse of what might have been. While it's not the equal of The Face in the Frost (it's a draft, so it's not very polished), it does feature Bellairs' trademark blend of humor and horror, though the horror is not quite as unsettling as that in "TFitF". The dangers presented in the plot are more concrete, less existential. There is, though, one moment in which I had to pause in my reading to howl "NOOOO!!!", an experience which most Bellairs fans would no doubt share, especially since the book is unfinished, so the actuality of the plot hook remains up in the air.

The House with a Clock in its Walls

2011-10-26T17:24:00.003-06:00

Review: The House with a Clock in its Walls
from: Practice Makes Better

Clocks disarm me, with their incessant nagging of the marching of time, and the idea of a clock to end the world is well, fitting with my dislike. It would be a clock to ruin all the fun of living with a wizard. My hero, a fat teenager loses his parents and has to live with his uncle Johnathan.

Tarby has a sister? Cool.

The Curse of the Blue Figurine

2011-10-24T04:56:00.000-06:00

Little Paper Time Machines
by Tom Ryan

The book was The Curse of the Blue Figurine by John Bellairs. A lonely boy gets caught up in an epic magical adventure, involving a magical ring, a cursed statue, and the possible end of the world. Awesome stuff, fantastically written – funny, dramatic, adventurous, and terrifying...It certainly didn’t scare me enough to keep me from devouring it – I re-read it so many times that the cover eventually fell off. It was a cover, incidentally, that had it’s own special appeal – illustrated and designed by the fantastic Edward Gorey. This was the kind of stuff I lived for. Gothic adventures that I could easily imagine myself getting caught up in.

The Figure in the Shadows

2011-10-09T10:27:00.000-06:00

Review: The Figure in the Shadows
from Occasionally Offensive

There were a couple of things which struck me, reading this as an adult, that I didn’t notice as a child. While the point of view hops a few times, I didn’t notice or care when I read this as a child. Now it’s been pounded into my head that POV switches without scene changes are a no-no, but I’m starting to think that this is a current fashion, rather than an inviolate rule. Also, at a certain point Lewis needs to be rescued, and it’s up to Rose Rita, Jonathan and Mrs. Zimmerman to rescue him. Mrs. Zimmerman does most of it, providing the means and the knowledge of where and when they need to go. If I were looking at this critically, with a fresh eye, I might suggest that we have a little more foreshadowing of who and what the figure was. Having Mrs. Zimmerman provide a parlour-room “this is what happened” scene struck me as another one of those writing conventions that people don’t use so much anymore. It’s also a wee bit Deus Ex Machina, that Mrs. Zimmerman both knows where to go, what to do, and has the tools (to give Rose Rita) to solve the problem.

The Face in the Frost

2011-10-09T10:24:00.001-06:00

Review: The Face in the Frost
from Corey Mallonee

Plot is not a strength of the book. Basically the entire story is Prospero walking north, evading the occasional trap set for him by his quarry. There’s an element of mystery to the whole thing, which helps to drive the story early on, but Prospero and Roger figure out what they’re up against relatively quickly. Even the book’s resolution is… not perfunctory exactly, but it’s not terribly satisfying either.

But nonetheless I think that The Face In The Frost is an absolute masterpiece, and the reason for this lies in Bellairs’s unparalleled ability to conjure atmosphere and horror. Basically, this book is creepy as hell.

The House with a Clock in its Walls

2011-10-09T10:22:00.001-06:00

Review: The House With a Clock In Its Walls
from ruledbybooks.com

Sure. This is a children’s book with a child as the main character. Lewis is a recently orphaned ten year old boy going to live with his eccentric Uncle Jonathan in New Zebedee. The intended audience is most likely in the same age bracket as Lewis (9 – 12), but I dare adults to read Bellairs and not fall in love with the stories. There’s a reason Neil Gaiman mentions John Bellairs in his blog promoting All Hallow’s Read. His books and characters transcend age lines because they remind all of us of the child inside.

The House With a Clock In Its Walls is a great spooky story about evil wizards and a clock that can bring about the end of the world. It has magic and mystery and ghosts that seek to bring about curses. It has tragic childhood mistakes, relationship foibles and cookies…lots and lots of cookies. I have read this book at least twenty times over the last 25 years. It’s one of those stories I return to and can always find something new to enjoy. It’s one of the books I look forward to sharing with my nieces, and I always recommend it to anyone looking for something for their own child to read. This was one of those books that ingrained a love of the written word in me, and I can directly link back to how it impacted me and my current need to write my own stories.

The Mummy, the Will, and the Crypt

2011-08-10T21:09:00.000-06:00

Review: The Mummy, the Will, and the Crypt
from Tales From the Book Truck

There is never a “Scooby-Doo” ending in which the villain is simply a cranky neighbor (in fact the cranky neighbor in these books is the hero!); the villain is always a warlock or a force summoned from Hell.

The Pedant and the Shuffly

2011-06-14T18:51:00.001-06:00

Review: The Pedant and the Shuffly
from Howling Frog books

It's quite a short little oddball fairy-tale type story -- the closest thing I can think of is James Thurber's The 13 Clocks.

The Face in the Frost

2011-06-14T18:47:00.000-06:00

Review: The Face in the Frost
from Howling Frog books

This is a great example of Bellairs' quirky, hodge-podgey style and it's fun to read, so any fan will enjoy it. Although it sounds like the usual sword-and-sorcery kind of thing, it isn't at all--but it is considered a classic of fantasy literature.

The House with a Clock in Its Walls

2011-06-01T16:32:00.000-06:00

Well written, though they stick close to their “formula,” Bellairs’s suspense-filled and entertaining mystery thrillers are the perfect reads for children who are progressing fast beyond their own second- or third-grade reading levels but may not be emotionally ready for the more frightening horror novels the older kids are reading. In fact, these are so good that many of the fifth- and sixth-graders who read nothing else but adult horror become huge fans of Bellairs’s work when introduced to him. There are many novels, and some of the best are The Trolley to Yesterday, The Vengeance of the Witch-Finder, and The Ghost in the Mirror.

From Valerie & Walter’s Best Books for Children (2nd ed.), p. 362:
THEMES: horror; mystery; adventure

The Spell of the Sorcerer's Skull

2011-04-10T17:57:00.000-06:00

Comments on The Spell of the Sorcerer's Skull
from Shredded Cheddar

I find it amusing that John Bellairs makes Father Higgins play down this traditional devotion so emphatically. He makes sure that his trusting altar boy knows it is "superstitious," "hocus-pocus," "totally unreliable," "an idiotic notion," "razzmatazz," and "mummery and flummery"--and that he himself has never heard of a case in which it actually worked. The priest clearly believes it could work . . . but also understands that in this case it might not. And I totally get that. Heck, I leave notes under the statue of St. Joseph in my parish church all the time, but I've never recommended it to anyone bent on concrete, immediate results. (Besides, can't you just imagine an earnest reader of this novel--someone with a missing parent or sibling--attempting the same and being completely crushed when it fails???)

The Dark Secret of Weatherend

2011-04-08T04:05:00.000-06:00

The Dark Secret of Weatherend
Review from Rebekah Plett

The Dark Secret of Weatherend

2011-02-24T17:52:00.000-06:00

Review: The Dark Secret of Weatherend
from Sterling Heights Public Library

The Bell, the Book, and the Spellbinder

2011-01-12T06:35:00.000-06:00

Review: The Bell, the Book, and the Spellbinder
by Aaron Pound

...all of them are introduced in such a manner as if Strickland had a big checklist and wanted to make sure he filled in all the boxes. This gives much of the story a mechanical feel as it ticks through all the required elements of a Johnny Dixon mystery, all the while not being particularly mysterious.

The Treasure of Alpheus Winterborn

2011-01-05T17:51:00.000-06:00

Review: The Treasure of Alpheus Winterborn
from garish and tweed

A fun, rompy story with hidden treasure, old buildings, floods, and a great librarian. Recommended if you want a light mystery.

The Childermass Clock and the Death Room

2011-01-01T12:14:00.000-06:00

Kate's been reading again...this time it's the two Windrow tomes, The Spell of the Sorcerer's Skull and The Revenge of the Wizard's Ghost and she has some comments about the setting of Spell:

But it all starts with a clock. Not just any clock, but a large shelf clock, about two by four feet, made by Johnny's friend Professor Childermass's father, and at its centerpiece is a dollhouse room like a Victorian parlor from the 1870s or 80s.

遺書と地下聖堂

2010-12-30T16:55:00.001-06:00

Review: The Mummy, the Will, and the Crypt (loosely translated as Johnny Dixon, and wills and crypt mummies) by katsu-7 from Amazon.jp:

Jon Bereazu famous as the author of the work of associations and Witch series Lewis. Dikusonshirizu book in the book is Johnny. And that more will be published.

The hero is the author and the same boy named John. Shy and dull-looking boy, we Noridashi their own adventures a little courage. But what we were waiting for him. When a mysterious book among Johnny grew up and hit hard, to get to a invaluable.

Lewis is darker than the series is small, but has relaxed warmth thrill, a book can feel the purity and above. What the author was a boy and his hero overlapped. Also expect a sequel.

Personally, we like the "hero is the author" bit.

The Face in the Frost

2010-12-30T03:35:00.000-06:00

Comments on John Bellairs from the Eleventh Stack:

As a kid, the autumnal ambience of Bellairs’s stories did much to shape my brain into the scare-seeking adult reader I am today. The Face in the Frost is an earlier Bellairs title that I discovered only recently. It’s a mashup of horror and fantasy about two wizards trying to stop a world-destroying spell, and something I need to get my hands on soon.

The Sign of the Sinister Sorcerer

2010-12-19T15:41:00.000-06:00

Review: The Sign of the Sinister Sorcerer
from Over My Dead Body!

Will Good triumph over Evil? Of course it will! Lewis and Rose are likable characters, and the plot is solid.

The Spell of the Sorcerer’s Skull

2010-11-30T05:06:00.000-06:00

Review: The Spell of the Sorcerer’s Skull
from tweens264mhp

The House with a Clock in its Walls

2010-10-27T16:16:00.000-06:00

Review: The House with a Clock in its Walls
by Madeline