Anthony Monday Books in Order

The Anthony Monday books are a little different from Bellairs's other big series, and that is part of their charm. Anthony is slightly older than Lewis or Johnny, and his stories begin in a more down-to-earth place. He lives in Hoosac, Minnesota, in the 1950s, and when money gets tight at home he takes a part-time job at the public library. That job brings him into the orbit of Miss Myra Eells, the town librarian, and once that happens ordinary life is over.

Anthony is practical, curious, and often in a hurry to prove himself.

Miss Eells is one of Bellairs's great older allies. She is smart, stubborn, kind, and just eccentric enough to fit perfectly into his fictional world. Anthony may do the running, snooping, and clue-chasing, but Miss Eells gives the series its steadiness. Her brother Emerson Eells, who knows far more than most people about the occult, also becomes part of the wider circle. Together they make the Anthony Monday books feel a little more like mysteries with family backup than solo-boy adventures.

The first book, The Treasure of Alpheus Winterborn, leans hardest into treasure-hunt territory. Anthony follows riddles and rumors through a library built by an eccentric millionaire, and the pleasure comes from clues, hidden history, and small-town greed. But the series does not stay purely rational for long. By The Dark Secret of Weatherend and The Lamp from the Warlock's Tomb, Bellairs turns the dial toward full supernatural danger: cursed objects, magical storms, dead sorcerers, and old powers that do not stay politely in the past.

Hoosac matters the same way New Zebedee and Duston Heights matter in Bellairs's other work. It feels lived in. The library is not just a backdrop. The river-town setting, the old estates, the local gossip, and the way Anthony moves between home, school, and town errands all help the weird parts land harder. Bellairs is good at making a reader believe that the most dangerous thing in the world might be hiding in a file drawer, an antique shop, or a boarded-up mansion a short drive away.

This quartet also has a slightly more mystery-driven rhythm than the Lewis books. Anthony asks questions. He follows money. He notices documents, inheritances, and odd behavior. Even when the stories become openly magical, they still move through clues and legwork. That gives the series a nice bridge feeling, part boy detective, part gothic fantasy, part supernatural suspense.

It is also the shortest of Bellairs's main middle grade runs. There are only four Anthony Monday books, ending with The Mansion in the Mist, which was published after Bellairs's death. That makes the series easy to read straight through, and it gives it a clean shape: one treasure hunt, then a deeper slide into weather magic, cursed relics, and stranger worlds.

If Lewis Barnavelt is the coziest Bellairs series and Johnny Dixon is often the most breathless, Anthony Monday sits in the middle. The books are spooky, but also thoughtful and clue-heavy. They are a good pick if you like libraries, old houses, hidden fortunes, and the feeling that the smartest person in the room might be a librarian with a practical coat and very good instincts.