read full post >

The fifth and final book of the series, with all the characters together at last. There are six .. Will & Bran & Simon & Jane & Barney & Gumerry .. who must complete the circle. This is the final battle between good and evil, and there are many pieces which must be in place for the battle to be won. They find themselves in wales again, and find the beautiful old lady (who is vital to the health and wholeness of the old ones), two take a trip to the lost land and four a trip to the past, and then a trip to a land that only partially exists. But with these characters (and John Rowlands, of course!) the journey is well worth following.

The battle is between good and evil, but there are humans involved, and always will be humans involved. Because the world belongs to humans, and not to Old Ones or their evil counterparts. The three Drew children are simply human, as in John Rowlands, but without them the battle would not be won. At the end there is a vital decision that must be made .. and the one to make it is a man, not an immortal being. A man who has a good heart and great strength, but is trusted by the Old Ones to choose well. And as humans, that is sometimes all we can do .. choose well. And step forward to the challenge even when we desperately want to run away. And after the battle is over .. what is there to do, but to choose to live each day well. A series I've read multiple times and will certainly revisit!

Title:	Silver on the Tree
Author:	Susan Cooper
Date published:	1977
Genre:	Young Adult, Fantasy
Series:	The Dark is Rising
Number of pages:	274
Notes:	Repeat reading

Read more...

read full post >

Fourth in the series, and this time Will Stanton is sick and goes to stay with relatives in Wales to recover his health. And this just happens to be the place where the next step needs to be taken by the Old Ones. Within the first few days there, will meets Bran Davies .. who has white hair and pale skin and amber eyes and just doesn't fit in. So they rather fit together, in some senses. Together they have adventures to find the golden harp and to wake the sleepers. Will, who as an Old One usually knows about people, has a hard time judging or knowing Bran. But someone has been there ahead of him to prepare the way and make sure these two boys will both meet and trust one another.

The Grey King is the name that has been given to the huge mountain in the area of Wales where this story takes place. That's what everyone calls it, because of legends from long ago. But Will can feel that they are not just legends. That the Grey King is a presence that wants to control and bring a heaviness to this place. And because the Grey King has become almost part of the land, his power is strong .. but will must fight against him both carefully and powerfully. Through a series of 'accidents' Will & Bran and Bran's dog, Cafall, end up in a stairway that leads to the one place they could find the harp where they must answer three questions. Before they step into the stairway and right after the Grey King seeks to attack them and ruin their chances .. but he does not succeed. The idea of a menacing presence that is part of the land feels very real to me. When evil has occured in a place, it can take root. Making echoes of itself felt long after the evil has passed. For good to conquer over evil in a place takes much time and something powerfully good. The imagery and legends are used well to bring this malevolent presence to life in a way that feels dangerous and almost possible.

Title:	The Grey King
Author:	Susan Cooper
Date published:	1975
Genre:	Young Adult, Fantasy
Series:	The Dark is Rising
Number of pages:	165
Notes:	Repeat reading

Read more...

read full post >

The third of five, in which all the main characters are present .. Will Stanton, Great Uncle Merry, and the three children from the first book. This is the shortest book, but plenty happens. All of them are in Tresswick together (the same location as the first book), to recover the grail which was stolen and to get the lost treasure as well. While they are there, all the villagers are participating in the making of the greenwitch .. at least the women are. Only the women are allowed to go, and Jane is invited to be present even though she's an outsider. Jane watches them make the greenwitch of branches and vines and stones, and in the dawn right before the fisherman come to throw the greenwitch out to sea, Jane makes a wish as everyone is able to do. The wish she makes is "I wish you could be happy." (p31)

And this is the key of this particular adventure .. that Jane had the opportunity to make a wish for herself and she chooses to wish for the greenwitch and not herself. The greenwitch who is part of the deep magic and answers only to the queen of the deep sea and who finds the secret from before. Both the dark and the light try to force her to give them her secret .. but she won't do it. She chooses to give her secret to the one person who cared about her. Both the dark and the light are shown to be less powerful than the deep magic (which is released when the greenwitch becomes angry), but kindness and love (of a sort) are more powerful than any of them! What an intriguing message.

Title:	Greenwitch
Author:	Susan Cooper
Date published:	1974
Genre:	Young Adult, Fantasy
Series:	The Dark is Rising
Number of pages:	131
Notes:	Repeat reading

Read more...

read full post >

The second book of five, in which Will Stanton is introduced. A boy turning eleven who is going on ageless. (One of the Old Ones, along with Merry from the first book.) Will is called the Sign-Seeker, and as the last of the Old Ones to be born is given the task (or tasks) of collecting six signs which is the second of four things of power the light is seeking to collect before the great battle. There are six signs of six different materials (wood, bronze, iron, water, fire, stone) which are all to be sought and found in a variety of places and times.

Will Stanton is a paradox .. an eleven year old boy, and also a being who has more power, knowledge, and responsibility than any regular human. Cooper is careful to not switch too easily between the two, and to make mention when one is particularly present. They are both part of him, but when he is with his family he is almost always an eleven year old .. who can't wait to open his Christmas presents, and who enjoys sledding, and who wants to make sure his family is alright. This is a hard tension to hold, but Cooper does it well.

Title:	The Dark is Rising
Author:	Susan Cooper
Date published:	1973
Genre:	Young Adult, Fantasy
Series:	The Dark is Rising
Number of pages:	244
Notes:	Repeat reading

Read more...

read full post >

Since Lark read these, it reminded me of them and I wanted to read them too! The beginning of a great story. Or a set of stories. There is Light and Dark, and important battles to be fought. Three children (Simon, Jane, and Barney) get to spend a month with their parents and their great-uncle Merry on vacation in Cornwall. On a dreary rainy day, they decide to explore the house where they are staying as if it were uncharted territory, and 'happen' to discover a manuscript with a map. And are sent on a treasure quest. With the Dark seeking to subvert and steal them, and the Light gently protecting and aiding without taking over.

This book introduces Merry aka Merriman Lyon, who is a marvelously mysterious character. He is old and yet powerful. When he speaks, people listen and are willing to do as he suggests. Even adults seldom feel able to ask him questions -- he is trusted but not known. This seems so true of life -- sometimes we are asked to simply trust even though it doesn't seem reasonable or logical or safe. Not that Merry represents God or something that extreme .. but sometimes God asks us to go on 'quests' even if we don't feel 'protected enough' or 'safe enough' or exactly sure of what we are doing.

The map that the children find is not exactly a map, but more of a drawing. And there are specific signs to mark where the treasure is hidden. Simple signs that last through the ages. Each one is different but clearly the right one once the children are in the right place at the right time. To watch elementary aged children go questing is enjoyable. They don't have all the answers or know exactly what they are doing, but they are willing to ponder various options and discover clues many adults wouldn't have been willing to even think about. And the signs are simple .. how true that something so beautiful and old and priceless can be hidden away with a couple of simple signs, and yet stay hidden for ages. What things do we miss each day because we look only for what we expect to see?

Title:	Over Sea, Under Stone
Author:	Susan Cooper
Date published:	1965
Genre:	Young Adult, Fantasy
Series:	The Dark is Rising
Number of pages:	243
Notes:	Repeat reading

Read more...

read full post >

Simon, Jane and Barney Drew are reunited with Will Stanton and meet his friend Bran in Wales. They, along with Merriman, are the six needed who will help find the last great object of power that may help the Light turn the tide against the advancing Dark. Bran and Will find their way into the Lost Land (something like a Welsh Atlantis) and go through several mazes and puzzles until they eventually recover the crystal sword, Eirias. Then they all trek to the Midsummer Tree with silver blossoms of mistletoe that appears once every seven hundred years, in order to use its power to drive out the Dark once and for all.

The Lost Land is a city of makers, craftsman, artists. They follow neither the Dark nor the Light, but when their King Gwyddno described the crystal sword that he knew it was in him to create, knowing that it would be a powerful weapon for the Light and that it might destroy their land, his people all still agreed that he must make it. Another character out of the Arthurian legends-- the bard who helps Will and Bran make their way to find Gwyddno is called Taliesin, among other names.

One of the most heart-breaking moments in the book centers around the character of John Rowlands, a farmhand that has known Bran since he was a boy, and who has helped both Will and Merriman without wanting to know too much about what they were doing. The children discover that his beloved wife, Blodwen, is really an agent of the Dark who has been there to keep an eye on Bran (and there are hints and suspicions of her duplicity quite early in the book). Rowlands is heartbroken by this knowledge because he truly loved his wife and feels betrayed at the Light for taking her away from him (and even her memory), and the Dark attempt to take advantage of this by choosing him as arbiter in their challenge that Bran does not belong to the time and has no right to approach the midsummer tree.

Bran gets to meet his father briefly, and at the end of the book Arthur, Merriman, and the other Old Ones (except for Will) sail away out of our world-- it reminded me of Tolkien's Elves leaving Middle Earth from the Grey Havens, or all the royals with the gift of magic leaving Prydain in Lloyd Alexander's The High King. Like Taran, Bran recognizes that this world needs him and decides to stay-- clearly a great sacrifice but also the right choice, and proving, as John Rowlands judged, that Bran did indeed belong to this time.

Jane has an interesting role to play-- when they are all looking for the Lost Land and the Lady (one of the most powerful of the Old Ones), she appears only to Jane, admitting a kind of kinship with Jane: she says that some things "may be communicated only between like and like," and goes on to say that "you and I are much the same, Jane, Jana, Juno, Jane, in clear ways that separate us from all others concerned in this quest..." Jane becomes a point of connection of like and like between the lady and Will (since she is both young and female). There's also a kind of tenderness between Bran and Jane that I found interesting. When Bran and Will are in the Lost Land, Bran comments that a girl is not as pretty as Jane, and Will responds that he hadn't noticed. Later, there's a kind of tenderness and maybe even a wistfulness towards her (for instance, when she can't see the crystal sword after he sheathes it), and he calls her "Jenny." Obviously, it wouldn't be appropriate to develop this thread too much in a children's book, but I found myself wondering if Jane might possibly be their century's Guinevere.

Title:	Silver on the Tree
Author:	Susan Cooper
Date published:	1977
Genre:	Children's Fantasy
Series:	The Dark is Rising
Number of pages:	269
Notes:	repeat reading

Read more...

read full post >

Will Stanton has been deathly ill-- so sick that he's forgotten what he is (an Old One), and the prophecy that he was entrusted to remember (at the end of Greenwitch). To recover from his illness, he's sent to an uncle's farm in Wales-- which is exactly where he was intended to be. While there, he meets and befriends an unusual boy named Bran, Bran's dog Cafal (apparently named for King Arthur's dog?), gets a lesson in Welsh pronunciation. Oh yeah, and while he's there he also faces off with the powerful Dark Lord, the Grey King, recovers the golden harp and awakens the six sleepers who will fight for the Light in the coming battle.

Bran is an interesting character-- and one of the most astounding things here is his identity. It's not made completely clear, but he seems to have more power than Will (or perhaps just a different kind of power?). It turns out that he is Arthur and Guinevere's son brought forward in time-- Guinevere was afraid that because she had been unfaithful to Arthur before he wouldn't believe that this was his son. But, Merriman/Merlyn seemed to take full advantage of that and brought Bran forward into time so the light would have another champion, another Pendragon to help them fight the Dark when it came rising.

I know I read this book before, but this wasn't what I remembered at all. Sure it was a long time ago, but shouldn't I have had some idea of the gist or main characters? I vaguely remembered something about wolves-- for some reason I thought maybe the Grey King was a wolf (we never see him, but he's a powerful Dark Lord). I guess I must have been remembering the milgwyn, the huge, gray, powerful ghost-foxes that serve the Grey King. The milgwyn are altogether too clever-- and it's very upsetting the way they are able to manipulate an angry human and a faithful dog to the destruction of one (perhaps both, in a way).

Title:	The Grey King
Author:	Susan Cooper
Date published:	1976
Genre:	Children's Fantasy
Series:	The Dark is Rising Sequence
Number of pages:	208
Notes:	repeat reading

Read more...

read full post >

The Arthurian grail that the Drew children found in Over Sea, Under Stone is stolen from a museum, and they end up going back to Cornwall during their spring break, along with Great Uncle Merry. Conveniently, Will Stanton's also on spring break, and his American uncle is in the country and offers to take him down to Cornwall. While they are there, it is time for the spring ritual of the Greenwitch.

Only women are allowed to the making of the Greenwitch (a huge structure of wood and stone that they build and then throw into the sea), and rarely are foreigners even allowed to get close, but Jane is invited to come-- and she senses the power and loneliness of the creature the structure represents. Before they throw it into the ocean, the women all touch the Greenwitch and make a wish-- and on impulse, Jane wishes that the Greenwitch would be happy. This sensitive and unselfish act rewards her greatly.

When the Simon, Jane, and Barney found the grail there was also a manuscript in a lead case-- the key to decipher it. In their attempts to keep the grail from the agents of the Dark, the manuscript was lost in the ocean. In this book, we discover that the Greenwitch has a "secret"-- something she holds very precious. The Lady of the Sea and the Greenwitch are both part of a wild magic that doesn't answer to Light or Dark-- so while both sides work their magic and ask or demand that she give it back, she is powerful enough to refuse them. In the end, she gives it freely to Jane, because Jane was kind to her.

Some interesting ideas about art... Barney is beginning to develop into an artist (like his mother, and as it was predicted briefly before). The grail-thief and would-be Dark lord lures the two brothers into his tinker shed, and uses Barney to read the future and how he may command the Greenwitch. It's never mentioned why he chooses Barney, but I wondered if it might be because as an artist he would be able to see things others couldn't. Interestingly enough, the agent of the Dark is also a painter-- Barney sees his work and senses the genius and power of it, but also a wrongness and a malevolence. Even better, the man's spells to command the Greenwitch are done through painting-- which seems so perfect and plausible.

An entertaining, if brief, entry in the Dark is Rising sequence. The Drew children finally meet Will Stanton (and sensitive Jane is the first to notice he is older than his years), and the poem on the manuscript found with the grail sets up Will's quests for the rest of the series.

Title:	Greenwitch
Author:	Susan Cooper
Date published:	1974
Genre:	Children's Fantasy
Series:	The Dark is Rising Sequence
Number of pages:	147
Notes:	repeat reading

Read more...

read full post >

Will Stanton is the youngest of a very large family, the seventh son of a seventh son, and as he celebrates his birthday on Midwinter's Day (just turning 11), he learns that he is the last of the Old Ones-- an ancient and powerful beings that fight against the Dark-- and that the Dark is rising again. As the Dark's power grows between Midwinter and the twelfth day of Christmas, Will is given a quest to find the six ancient signs, emblems of power made of (or representing) bronze, iron, stone, wood, fire, and water. Once they are collected and joined, they will help drive back the dark. His mentor and teacher is another Old One, Merriman Lyon-- known as Great Uncle Merry to the Drew children in Over Sea, Under Stone, and in fact we learn in this book that the Arthurian grail the Drew children helped find is another contested emblem of power.

One of the most interesting characters is the Walker. Among their other powers, Old Ones can move in an out of time. Merriman brings a 16th century mortal, one of his liege-men in that time, forward through time to help with a particular task, and this turns out to be more than the mortal can bear. This man betrays the Light and becomes the Walker, tramping and surviving through the centuries carrying a sign to give to Will in his own time-- used by both Light and Dark, he still clearly has choices to make about who he will serve.

Herne the Hunter and his white hounds make an appearance near the end of the book, which made me think of Dogsbody, although they are portrayed rather differently here. Neither a servant of the Light or the Dark, he hunts the dark out of England and to the edge of the world, effectively driving it back for a time.

I read this series at least once a long time ago, but when I came across some news about this book being made into a movie, I had only the vaguest recollection of what the books were about-- so I decided it was time to re-read them.

Title:	The Dark is Rising
Author:	Susan Cooper
Date published:	1973
Genre:	Children's Fantasy
Series:	The Dark is Rising Sequence
Number of pages:	232
Notes:	Repeat reading. A Newbery Honor book.

Read more...

read full post >

On a family vacation in Cornwall with their mysterious, adventurous Great-Uncle Merry (nicknamed "Gummery" by the children), Simon, Jane and Barney (short for Barnabas) discover an ancient map and end up on a kind of treasure-hunt for an Arthurian Grail, but they are also racing against the dark and mysterious villains who are looking for the same treasure for their own evil purposes. It's a delightful, entertaining story-- the puzzle of the "map" to the treasure is clever, but also believable that the children could figure it out. It also occurred to me, as I neared the end, how nice it was to read about siblings who actually get along well and enjoy working together.

After the children discover the ancient map, Great-Uncle Merry explains to them that their quest is part of an age-old battle between good and evil; the treasure they seek is a grail with engravings that tell the true story of Arthur, which has been lost in myth and legend. Gummery himself is old but ageless, and clearly quite powerful (the villains don't dare to confront him). Near the end of the book, when Barney hears Merry's full name (Merriman Lyon), he wonders to himself if his great-uncle could possible by Merlin, but then quickly dismisses the thought.

The map is hundreds of years old, so the Cornishman who hid the treasure had to use signs that wouldn't wear away-- the children discover that these signs are the ancient natural rock pillars near the coast, with directions given by the setting sun and the full moon. The grail itself is in a cave near the coast that they can only get to when the water is at extremely low-tide (and the smallest of them, Barney, can barely fit through)-- almost as if they were meant to find it. This fits with what Merry says at one point-- that they'll find it happens to be the right time of year for the moon and sun to be where they need them to follow the map.

The leader of the villains is a dark and sinister man, even with some hypnotic powers. At one point the Withers snatch Barney away-- and in spite of the fact that he's been kidnapped, Hastings almost convinces him that he's misunderstood everything and that they aren't really evil at all. Merry states enigmatically that this dark man will be back again, as he has been before, but that he won't look the same-- which sounds almost like a Satan figure.

Title:	Over Sea, Under Stone
Author:	Susan Cooper
Date published:	1965
Genre:	Children's Fantasy
Series:	The Dark is Rising
Number of pages:	252
Notes:	repeat reading

Read more...