The Mummy, the Will, and the Crypt by John Bellairs

The Mummy, the Will, and the Crypt Reviews

• 
  Calista

  I enjoy these books. This is about Johnny Dixon and he needs money to help his grandparents so they can pay their doctor bills. A widow is looking for a lost Will and she will pay 10,000 who can solve the puzzle of where it is. Surprise - Johnny finds the Will.
  
  Written in the 80s, it has a gothic feel to them and they are set in the 50s. It is a safe and cozy creepy factor. These are great for pre-teens and teens. Heck, I still enjoy them. They aren't groundbreaking or all that surprising. They are a great read a night in front of the fire, or snuggled in bed to just relax too.
  
  Many of these books are being forgotten and I hope they have a resurgence. They are fun books and need to stick around for the next generation.
• 
  ✦BookishlyRichie✦

  Re-read: November 2019!
  
  Loved just as much as I did the first time I read it. It's a perfect autumn read. :)
• 
  Tricia Harrild

  John Bellairs is a great pick for ghost stories and magic and evil deeds. They are an easy read and I really wish I could find them as audio versions.
• 
  D.

  John Bellairs continues to improve as a writer, and the second in the JOHNNY DIXON books. As with previous books, there is a nice mix of mystery and spookiness. This time, Johnny is trying to find a long-lost will left behind by an eccentric millionaire. Of course, things are never easy for poor Johnny, and pretty soon he's in the need of help from The Professor. This book has some genuinely creepy moments, and Bellairs does a nice job of getting into Johnny's thoughts and motivations. Bellairs continues to impress me with his consistency, and I honestly can't believe no movie studio or TV producer hasn't snapped up the rights to Bellairs catalogue -- it seems like such a perfect fit! (Of course, they'd probably screw it up . . . but I'm sure Bellairs' heirs wouldn't mind some money thrown their direction!)
  
  
  Highly recommended!
• 
  Bruce Nordstrom

  I first read John Bellairs' "The Face in the Frost," about 1970, and I loved it. Funny, frightening, could not put it down. Told myself that I gotta read more by this guy.
  
  So here all these years later, I am reading my second book by John Bellairs. And I am really disappointed by it. I will grant you that this book is aimed at an early teen audience. But still some of the characters seemed so cast by formula. There is the young boy, orphaned, living with his grandparents. He is highly intellegant, plucky, but lonely. And across the street lives the eccentric old professor... And then there is the mystery of the missing will... There are ghosts. Abandoned mansions... Black magic...
  
  But it all seems to lack the depth to make it truly mysterious, or frightening.
• 
  Liaken

  I love Bellairs' scary mysteries. I loved them as a child, too. They were just scary enough so I would make a running leap for the bed in the darkened room, but not scary enough to keep me awake. I also feel like he takes his young characters seriously. That even when the young mind is passionately irrational, it is still real.
  
  I read the copy with Edward Gorey's perfect illustrations. Really, he's the perfect choice.
• 
  Laura

  This is billed as the sequel to The Curse of the Blue Figurine but you don't really need to read the first one. It just has the same main characters. It stands alone and the whole Glomis riddle and property would be amazing to see. Great plot especially the suspense of creeping around in the underground passage. Really feels like you're there. Sign of great writing.
• 
  Summer

  What is it about the combination of John Bellairs's writing and Edward Gorey's covers and frontspieces that makes these books still legitimately creepy? Also, pretty much all of his books take place in New England, which is a plus in my book.
• 
  Erica Harmon

  Just want to thank Ann for giving me a John Bellairs before leaving the bookstore all those years ago. No middle reader author compares.
• 
  Cynthia Egbert

  I enjoyed this next offering in the Johnny Dixon series. Not as much creep factor as the first book but still decent. I do love the way that John Bellairs can get into the mind of a child. I also appreciate that Bellairs never fails to give me a Shakespeare reference!
• 
  Denise

  This book was a surprise. It is a 5th grade reading level and I read it along with one of my 2nd grade students to give her some support with vocabulary, etc. and ended up really enjoying it. I'm guessing is set sometime around the early 1950's so behaviors, language etc. were a little unusual compared to today. Johnny is 12, living with his grandparents. His mother has died and his father in a pilot in the Korean War. Oddly enough his good friend is an elderly professor. The professor, second main character, is described a "crabby" throughout but is genuinely fond of Johnny. The mystery begins with Johnny and the professor visiting the former home and now museum of a cereal manufacturer. When he died his will was missing and the widow offered a $10K reward if anyone could discover its whereabouts. Johnny's grandmother needs surgery and he is determined to find the will and use the reward for her. Bellairs has written others which I would also read.
• 
  Daniel

  Gothic horror at Bellairs' best. I vacillate between which set of characters I enjoy the most, but Johnny Dixon and the good professor most frequently wind up at the top. This is one of their best adventures and is strengthened by its interesting non-supernatural subplot of Johnny's new friendship and struggles at being without his mother and father. This is one I've read both as the Edward Gorey illustrated edition and a newer one, and the brilliance of Gorey's illustration - even if just the cover and back - casts the reading experience in a completely different light. Brilliant macabre novel that is suitable for young and old alike.
• 
  scarlettraces

  i rememember Bellairs as a writer of children's books that were just on the too side of creepy (actually the House With a Clock in Its Walls, and one that must have been by the same publisher in the same format, because he doesn't seem to have written a book where the cutlery wakes up at night and has dance parties. it also wasn't gothic. the library in my town was small and i was a wuss.)
  
  reading this one, i found it more as if the early 1950s setting was an excuse for the oldfashioned writing than the other way round, the mystery unappealing, and the supernatural unscary. he has his fans though, so don't let me put you off.
• 
  Kate

  This time, Johnny Dixon just happens to be at Boy Scout Camp when he might have stumbled across the answer to the mystery of a missing will. The usual creepy black magicky stuff goes on, some nifty puzzles and a little too lickety split sort of ending. One of the nicest parts of this book is how Johnny makes a new friend (Fergie) and how he experiences near-constant worry about his grandmother's illness and his father in the Korean War.
  
  I wish this reissue hadn't replaced the Gorey cover with this, well, gory one. Still good creepy middle grades stuff.
• 
  Kris

  The book flows well and the lead up to the climax is nicely tense and well executed. Johnny's fears, leaps to conclusions and motivations are thoroughly believable for a 12 year old boy, particularly one who has recently lost his parents- mother is dead and father is away at war. As an adult I find the shorter choppy sentences a bit tiresome in places, but not so much that I couldn't read it.
  
  My only complaint is the time. The book opens in the autumn of 1951, but the first book starts in winter of 1951 and is very clear that this is when Johnny and the Professor become friends.
• 
  Kim

  I loved all John Bellairs books as a kid. I'm working on rereading them. I don't love the Johnny Dixon books as much as the Lewis Barnavelt books because the characters aren't nearly as awesome. But this second book was better than the Curse of the Blue Figurine. The mystery was pretty good and even page-turning in parts. It's disappointing to discover that these books aren't as good as I remember them being. I also miss the Edward Gorey covers.
• 
  trina

  i love john bellairs because his books are creepy and atmospheric, and funnily child-inappropriate in ways children's books are not today. i bought a ton of these brand-new for a dollar each! at salvation army, and will donate them to my school's library... once i've read them all, of course. hehe. call me a philistine, but i'd rather read john bellairs's children's mysteries than john ashbery's so-called poems anytime! (j.a. being the 'real' stuff i'm also currently reading)
• 
  louisa

  Bellairs! So strange and strangely paced. Parts fly by in true (even as an adult) terror, darker and more occult than you would expect, while others are about the unexpected but very real and very scary parts of being a kid. Bellairs is decidedly not factory-produced like other children's serials. There are no expected beats or rhythms, and I like him for it. That and the occult glass harmonica!
• 
  Jennifer

  This is, in my humble opinion, the best of the John Bellairs mysteries. Recommended by a super cool school librarian (don't laugh - all nerdy kids love their librarians), every single thing about it facsinated me as a kid. Atmospheric, intelligent and just scary enough, after finishing this one, I went on to read every Bellairs book I could find. I devoured them all and read each one many, many times.
• 
  Lisa Kucharski

  Discovered this writer by finding a book of his at a relative's summer home in Indiana. A fun series filled with mystery and supernatural powers. I also like the fact that the kid is smart and knows about Latin and poems and such. In this story, Johnnie is under a lot of pressure worrying about loved ones... and he decides to take a chance to help them... but ends up facing a lot of frightening and life-threatening situations.
• 
  Ben

  Oh man oh man -- John Bellairs: still great. Five stars might be overkill, but I really enjoyed this one. The writing kind of reminds me of a more subdued Roald Dahl, if he were more focused on supernatural Gothic horror, etc. The trademarks are all there: cantankerous old adults, goofy (disgruntled but) friendly characters, bizarre puzzles and mysteries. If this were the comicsverse, I could see really enjoying a Johnny Dixon / Matilda crossover. Just sayin'.
• 
  Arthur

  Interesting writing. Bellairs is brilliant. Johnny Dixon and young person becomes obsessive about a riddle he feels he knows he will solve but the clues don't add up. For Johnny it may be to late before he can put clues together, by using his strong will power he attempts on his own to solve the riddle and mystery that surrounds the too famous Glomus's last will and testament, and if it actually exists.
• 
  Heather Jackson

  I found it, I found it, I green and yellow found it!
  
  I fell in love with this book as a kid. For years, I couldn't remember enough to find it again... just the phrase "a tisket a gasket a will in a wicker basket" that haunted me like Johnny Dixon's troubles haunt him. Now that I've found it again, I'm pleased to say that it is as satisfying as I remembered, and better than the first Johnny Dixon book!
• 
  Marjanne

  The second book in the Johnny Dixon series. I was as fun as I expected. This was an interesting story and it was nice to see some more character development, especially for Johnny. My only problem was that the story wrapped up too neatly.
• 
  Tracey

  Children's fiction. Mystery/adventure. A decent mystery that should charm kids that are into such things. The story centers mainly on the missing will and not so much on the mummy or the crypt, but the story is appropriately spooky for the month of October.
• 
  Brandy

  I wanted to love this, never having read John Bellairs before, but... eh. It didn't light my world on fire. The ending didn't address many of the questions I had... I dunno. I'll probably read more, but this sadly didn't wow me.
• 
  Michael

  I read this in middle school as a part of a series of the same characters. I remember really liking them. They were intense and scary for an innocent 10 year old.I am going to read some of this series again to see if they might be something my 10 year old will like.
• 
  Kris - My Novelesque Life

  3 STARS
  
  "When Johnny Dixon searches a deserted mansion to find H. Bagwell Glomus's hidden will, he accidentally stumbles upon a mysterious and terrifying force."
  
  A great mystery paranormal children's novel.