Hi all and welcome back to So Desensitized! Today we’re talking about one of my favorite authors ever who shockingly few people I’ve talked to know about. But today they’ll learn, because today I’m going to tell you all about John Bellairs, one of the best children’s authors to ever do it. Happy reading, stay spooky, and try to get your hands on some of his books if you can! ✒️📓🍨🔪🩸

John Bellairs (1938-1991) wrote from 1966 all the way up until his death. He wrote a few novels for adults, like The Pedant and the Shuffly, but an overwhelming majority of what he wrote was gothic literature for children. And I don’t mean scary stories directed at children, I mean gothic novels written for an audience ages around seven and up. And this is really quite a remarkable thing, especially for there being fifteen such books, and even more especially for those books being published between 1973 and 1990 (some books were finished posthumously and I don’t count those really), at the very height of the Satanic Panic.

If you are an avid reader of this blog, you have most definitely heard of the Satanic Panic before, so we’re gonna skip the little history lesson for today (but if you DO want the history lesson check out my article on Child’s Play). The thing to keep in mind about the Satanic Panic in regards to children’s literature is that it was a very long extension of post World War Two attitudes towards media of all kinds, but especially media for children and young adults. The rules and regulations of things like the Hayes Code and the Comics Code essentially prevented children from having access to anything even remotely resembling horror media. It even prevented adults from engaging with horror if they wanted to. Which meant that what followed the repealing of these harsh media guidelines was an absolute surge in horror media. Specifically, the horror/gothic paperback. The absolute volume of paperbacks sold during these two decades really cannot be overstated. But the thing was, they were all either for adults or teenagers. Except, of course, for John Bellairs’.

It is so important that there are books for children, about children. Especially, and this might sound crazy, scary ones. Scary stories give everyone chances to explore their fears in a safe environment, but that is even more so important for kids. The thing is, though, is that it’s difficult to create scary stories for kids that don’t come off a little condescending, or out of touch with the reality of being a child. But John Bellairs manages to accomplish exactly that. His characters feel real, the things they interact with are genuinely scary, and they are never treated as less than they are. What makes John Bellairs books so special is that they are really very much about childhood. He even said it himself once, that he still had the imagination he did when he was ten, and so that’s who he writes for, is his ten year old self. And that absolutely shines through in all of his novels, through all three of his heroes’ adventures.

In a John Bellairs novel, you will read about one of three possible heroes: Lewis Barnavelt, Johnny Dixon, or Anthony Monday. All of them live in New England in some capacity. All of them are almost excruciatingly Catholic. And all of them so perfectly encapsulate all of the adventures you wanted to have as a child. In John Bellairs books, that weird little statue you found really is haunted, that weird old man actually is an ancient sorcerer, and the mansion just off the campgrounds does, in fact, carry a generational curse. Each of John Bellairs books really capture the what it is to be a curious, slightly strange, child, like Bellairs himself once was. Largely set during the fifties, they communicate so clearly, but with so little pomp or circumstance, what childhood felt like. The grand adventure of it all, even in the scariest bits. And oftentimes, the scariest bits aren’t the ones with a ghost chasing Johnny Dixon around a haunted mansion just off his Boy Scout campgrounds, or Lewis Barnavelt watching a doomsday clock tick down in his uncle’s house. They’re the ordinary ones, where Johnny rides the train out to that mansion alone because his Grandma has a brain tumor and if she dies he’ll be all alone, so he needs to get the reward money for solving the house’s puzzle. The world of John Bellairs feels massive, not because it meanders through museums and diners and inherited homes and the woods of New England beyond it all, but because it is viewed through the eyes of children the whole way through. Children that want adventure and excitement, just like all children do, but get scared, or bullied, or in way over their heads, and end up making kind of strange friends but that’s OK because they’re strange, too.

That sense of childhood is also often what makes John Bellairs books so scary. All of his characters have distinctly childlike fears and anxieties, even before the supernatural elements, that make the everyday world seem more dangerous than it is and exacerbate the effects of the actual scary ghosts and curses. They all fear both the kinds of irrational and oddly specific things that children tend to, but also carry with them anxieties over family, loneliness, friendships, bullying, and all the other everyday kinds of things kids deal with. And these fears are never diminished in the face of being chased through hotels or facing down doomsday. In fact, they are largely treated just as seriously, because all of those things are just as real to Johnny, Lewis, and Anthony as all the others. Johnny was already afraid of stepping on a rusty nail, getting lockjaw, and dying of tetanus, but that small, irrational, fear does not go away when he survives outright possession. It still lives with him and worries him, just like achievements (or lack thereof) worry Lewis after the events of The Figure in the Shadows, and school worries Anthony after The Treasure of Alpheus Winterborn. And those parallels are, in many ways, what make these books so good.

None of John Bellairs’ heroes are your typical horror leads. They’re all scared the whole time. None of them quite know what they’re doing. They’re all just kids, worried about kid things, and crazy supernatural things as well. What John Bellairs books show is that you can be scared the whole time and still be a hero. The world can be a little too big, and you can be a little too odd, but you’ll find friends like you. They might be the old man next door and the weird kid from camp, or the girl from school who’s kind of mean, or your local librarian, but that’s OK because they’re your friends and they’re going to help you. Whether it’s with a cursed skull or a test at school is all the same to them. What John Bellairs does as an author is what all good horror creators do - he makes you feel scared. And while that may seem obvious - it is horror, after all - the way in which he does it creates a beautiful little world, not unlike the one we live in, where gothic mysteries exist and are scary as hell, but you’ll come out of them a little braver. You’ll be a little stupid and so will your friends and maybe you’ll have to fight a robot because of it and you’ll be so so scared but then you’ll go get hot fudge sundaes. The world of John Bellairs is a scary place, but it is one in which you’ll never feel alone for long. And in that is the gift of a true master of horror.

Thanks for reading, all! John Bellairs is one of my favorite authors of all time, and I highly recommend trying to find some of his books (Johnny is my favorite). He really made the spooky little kid that I was feel seen, and I think you can’t really appreciate exactly how good he is until you read one of his books. I’ve listed a few of my favorite here below, to start with. Happy reading, stay spooky, and check them out! ✒️📓🍨🔪🩸

• The Curse Of The Blue Figurine (Johnny Dixon #1)

• The House With A Clock In Its Walls (Lewis Barnavelt #1)

• The Treasure Of Alpheus Winterborn (Anthony Monday #1)

• The Mummy, The Will, And The Crypt (My favorite! Johnny Dixon #2)

• The Figure In The Shadows (My favorite Lewis Barnavelt)

• The Lamp From The Warlock’s Tomb (My favorite Anthony Monday)