Cthulhu dla dzieci. Nawiązania do twórczości H. P. Lovecrafta w serii Johna Bellairsa i Brada Stricklanda o Luisie Barnavelcie

The article Cthulhu for Children. References to H. P. Lovecraft’s Works in John Bellairs and Brad Strickland’s Lewis Barnavelt Series discusses references to H. P. Lovecraft’s works in John Bellairs and Brad Strickland’s children’s horror novels about Lewis Barnavelt. Contemporary “children’s-like” books which make use of the Cthulhu Mythos are presented, as well as basic information about the series and relations between Bellairs and Lo­vecraft, which provide the foundation for an intertextual dialogue with the gentleman from Providence’s prose in the considered novels. Not only do the Lewis Barnavelt books, The Beast Under the Wizard’s Bridge in particular, utilize horror, but also ridicule it on the basis derived from the “great subversive play”. Therefore, carnivalesque world, in which ‘weak’ children defeat a Great Old One, contrasts with the universe known from Lovecraft’s writings, where humans, overwhelmed by the incomprehensibility and vastness of the cosmic power, are deprived of any hope.