Tuesday Talks is a group on Goodreads that is a weekly discussion forum created by BookTubers Janie Johnson and her pal, Janelle. It is a very social group and is very fun to answer each week's question.
This week's question is: What middle grade series needs a young adult sequel?
I have read many middle grade books in my years of reading. This question had me thinking hard, but I found a middle grade series deserves a young adult sequel...
The Johnny Dixon Mysteries by John Bellairs captured my imagination in the early 1980s. Published by Bantam-Skylark books, it was a mystery series surrounding a boy named Johnny Dixon and his neighbor, Professor Childermass. What made their mysteries so much fun was the fact they all had a supernatural element to them. Beginning with the Curse of the Blue Figurine in 1983, Bellairs introduced us to 1950s Duston Heights, Massachusetts. It was there that Johnny encountered a blue figurine, and was sent on an adventure that was filled with thrills and chills. Later on he met a boy his age, named Fergie, that accompanied him and Childermass throughout the twelve book series. Each mystery was creepier than the one before it. I remember my mother reading them to me, and later I continued to read them on my own. I will never forget the feeling I had walking into the local Waldenbooks, and choosing the next Johnny Dixon adventure.
I can see the young adult sequel happening many decades later with Johnny and his grand child having similar adventures. The series would be told from the child's perspective, and contain as much horror and mystery as the original. With so many dystopian and re-tellings hitting the book stores lately, it would be a welcomed change.
Mr. Bellairs wrote some of my childhood's favorite reads with his Johnny Dixon series of spooky novels. Before R.L. Stine, John Bellairs was scaring unsuspecting children worldwide. When I was around eight years old, he wrote me when I had sent him a fan letter. It was typed on a postcard, and I treasured it for years after. He told me to keep reading and getting good grades, and maybe someday I may be a writer. How right he was. I wish I could have met him, but I did have correspondence with him, and that is something I will never forget.
I look forward to reading everyone's answers. If you have a comment for me, please leave it below.
Because there is always time to read,
Xepherus3
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