Customer Reviews

The Dark Is Rising (Boxed Set): The Dark Is Rising, Greenwitch, Over Sea, Under Stone, Silver on the Tree, The Grey King

5 star:		(33)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Susan Cooper's books are the sort that immediately cause people to say "But aren't those for kids?"

Technically, yes. So is "The Hobbit," for that matter. And Susan Cooper's "Dark is Rising Sequence" has joined the elite shelf of timeless books that are technically for kids, but not necessarily JUST for kids. With her use of myth and folklore, rich language, and a time-spanning battle between good and evil, Cooper spins up a rare tale in her majestic prose.

"Over Sea Under Stone" features the three Drew children coming to stay with Merriman Lyon. In his attic, they find an ancient treasure map that leads to a hidden grail -- if they can only figure out what the map's writing and symbols mean. But they are not the only ones who are looking for the grail -- three sinister people are in pursuit.

"The Dark is Rising" shifts its focus elsewhere. On his eleventh birthday, young Will Stanton encounters the mysterious Merriman, and is told that he is the last of the immortal "Old Ones" who are fighting the forces of evil (known as the Dark). As the power of the Dark grows, Will must gather the six Signs that can help stop them -- and protect his friends and family from the Dark.

"Greenwitch" brings the four young heroes together. Will and the three Drew kids are brought to Cornwall, where the grail has been stolen. Jane is haunted by nightmares about the Greenwitch, a symbolic weaving of branches and leaves cast into the sea, and a sinister artist captures Barney. But the Greenwitch is not just a tangle of sticks -- it's alive with wild magic that neither Old Ones nor the Dark can control.

"Grey King" is the threat of the Dark. Will is recovering from an illness in Wales, where he meets a "raven boy" (an albino Welsh boy, Bran) and a dog with "eyes that see the wind" -- part of an old legend. Will must lead Bran into a closer connection with the Old Ones. But when an accident befalls the dog, Bran is angry with the Old Ones -- until the truth of his past comes to light.

"Silver on the Tree" brings the series to a climax. Will receives visions of the past, and a message from Merriman that the final battle between the Dark and the Light is about to come. Evil creatures (minks, specifically) are swarming near his house -- and the Old Ones, while almost ready, don't have the power of the Lady. He teams up with the Drews and with Bran to find the Lost Land.

Sure, fantasy incorporating old myth and legend is nothing new. People have been doing it for as long as the genre has existed. But Susan Cooper brings the idea of time-travelling immortals and ancient magic to life in this, and avoids the usual syrup and dumbing-down that most authors feel compelled to include.

Cooper's writing is detailed and atmospheric, although the first book is much more plainly written than the following four. She can switch instantly from lighthearted to mystical and back again, and her writing is heavy with description. Moreover, she takes the folklore and legends of Britain and interweaves them with Arthurian legend, giving the whole Arthurian story a new spin.

While some may not like the portrayal of good and evil as evenly matched, the strength of the Old Ones' determination is extremely invigorating. They're powerful, but still very human, able to make errors and feel sorrow. And there are lessons carefully interwoven about good and evil, about loyalty, compassion, redemption, and friendship. These sentiments are never gooey, just powerful.

As for the kids, Jane, Barney and Simon Drew are a little less endearing because they seem a little dated -- think E. Nesbit characters out of time. Will Stanton and Bran, however, have the qualities of timeless characters, both wise and ancient and yet still very young. And Merriman looms over it all as the all-seeing guardian, alternately forbidding and dignified or kindly and grandfatherly.

With its majestic prose and entrancing, otherworldly characters, the "Dark is Rising Sequence" is a remarkable piece of work, and one that deserves many rereadings. Outstanding.

I am too old to have read these as a kid. I was pretty much a grown-up by the time they were published and never heard of them till recently.

I very much enjoyed them, but can't get my kids (10 and 16 year old boys) interested in reading them. The copies I checked out of the library did have smaller type than they prefer, and I also noticed that half of the series was in J Fict and half was in Young Adult. I asked about that and the librarian said it had to do both with content and reading level. The strange thing was, it wasn't the first half in J Fict and the 2nd half in YA but it seemed to almost jump back and forth and back again, but after reading it I could see that some of the stories are deeper and more complicated than others, and they don't progress in a linear fashion (each getting more complicated and mature than the last, like the Harry Potter books do).

These books do sort of start out slow. And there's another oddity, the introduction of the main character of the series in the second book. It's strange that he's totally absent in the first and then the second one doesn't mention the three children from the first book at all. Then a later book introduces still another main character and near the end we learn a surprising revelation about a character who had, previously, seemed very minor indeed. These are not your typical books, they are not predictable, and they are the type you can re-read and enjoy again and again. If you don't like them (or if you kids don't), wait a couple years and try them again.

I read books from this series when I was in 6th Grade, in 1979, and couldn't put them down. I've periodically thought about them ever since. I could never remember the titles though. I recently remembered that one may have won the Newbery Book award. The web led me to the site, and then here.

I'd recommend them to anyone with kids. They're hard to put down and I'm looking forward to reading them again.

(Some Minor Spoilers below.)

The Dark is Rising sequence is one of those ubiquitous book series that all children seem required to read, and although I had it on my "to-read" list, I never got to it as a kiddo. So, when I saw this nice boxed set I thought it was my chance to catch up with a series I had neglected.

Now I wish I had read it when I was younger; I think I would have found them more entertaining. As it is, I feel that the series is average. This isn't to say that singular books weren't exceptional -- but that the whole is not greater than its parts.

The first book, Over Sea, Under Stone, is my favorite of the five. I would easily give it 5 stars. It had me on my toes throughout the entire narrative! The children were sympathetic, realistic, and interesting characters; the plot, entertaining; the tension, quite real. For the first time in a long time, I wondered if the little heroes could pull through all right. Of course, the jaded adult in me said, "Of course they can! It's a children's book!" But this book is so well written, so entertaining -- like "The Goonies," or a child's Indiana Jones -- that I couldn't help but throw my jaded predisposition to the wind and just enjoy the ride.

The second book, The Dark is Rising, I was not so certain about. It reveals Will, the last of the Old Ones, and his mission to find all of the Signs necessary to stop the Dark in the final battle. In my opinion, this is where the series gets awkward. At first I was excited for Will, who finds out he is capable of great things and can set objects on fire with just a word (which I think everyone wants to do at some point). The Dark seemed doubly sinister -- the Dark Rider was a downright thrilling villain, and the Dark attacks people Will holds dear, controls the weather, and altogether seems capable of anything.

And yet, as the story progressed, it seemed Will became less and less a character I cared for, and more and more static and uninteresting. I didn't understand, and still don't understand, the limits of an Old One -- what they can and can't do in our world, what laws govern them in general. Furthermore, the Dark -- this supposedly terrifying, very powerful force -- seems incapable of really touching Will himself, a boy who has not completely grown into the power of an Old One. I found myself wondering if the Dark could really do anything at all, or if the author gave them all this "power" for show and no brains to go with it, for their powers and plots all came to naught with what seemed little effort. I couldn't help but compare them to the villains in the first book -- villains who were terrifying precisely because they could be anybody, anywhere, working in broad daylight just as well as behind the scenes. In a way, this made the fear more visceral and brought it home to the real world -- the Dark could be the hobo in the street or, just as easily, your neighbor. This is lost when Ms. Cooper transforms the Dark into a bogeyman.

A final problem: Ms. Cooper brings up old legends without any backstory, which I would have really appreciated (as I am not an Arthurian aficionado). A little blurb in the back of the book would have been perfect.

When I moved on to Greenwitch, and realized Will and the Drews would join forces, I looked forward to it. Will then proved himself to be an annoying pretentious little twit who I wanted to kick. Merriman told the Drews they were necessary, but as the book progressed I wasn't sure why -- it seemed that what the Drews did, anybody could have done. Although I enjoyed Jane's larger place in the narrative, and the ending was very satisfying, the Drew children ended up "tools," which is really unforgivable. This book also introduced a regretful element that Ms. Cooper abuses: making people forget the incredible things they have seen. Yes, this was done in The Dark is Rising, but I felt it was done for a good reason; it was to protect Will's family and the people in his community, and I had the feeling that Old Ones were to remain absolutely undetected at all times (which was reasonable). Here, it was not done for anyone's safety, and rather, seemed completely indiscriminate. "No, we can't have you Drews seeing Will and Merriman jump off a cliff and float away. I mean, sure you guys know about the fantastical Dark and all, but we can't trust you with any more, even though you helped us find the Grail and Simon saw some creepy supernatural thing happen to Barney and Jane is talking to a nasty spirit in her dreams."

The Grey King picks up, and is the second book in the series that I would give 5 stars to. Will becomes capable of making mistakes, actually manages to forget something, and is generally an interesting fellow. The new character, Bran, was equally as fascinating. The story picked up the same sharp tension that was so wonderful about the first book, and I enjoyed it the whole way through. I didn't completely understand the Arthurian elements, but that was all right; it was just as entrancing. The Grey King himself, and his horrible foxes, were delightful foes. This book would make for a fantastic movie.

Silver on the Tree was my least favorite in the series and brought to a head all of the problems plaguing the series. Ms. Cooper was just too vague and arbitrary. Why were some choices bad and some choices good? I'll never know. Why did they do this and not that? Heaven knows why. WHY did she take a character I love and turn them to the Dark? Why, why, why does she make the Drews and Bran forget everything at the end? When Bran tried to give Jane his green pebble I wanted to cry. It's like Ms. Cooper utterly undid any sort of character development that may have gone on in the entire narrative. All the elements that could have made this book satisfying -- Bran meeting his father and realizing his destiny -- might as well have never occurred. Sure, the Lost Land was all sorts of wonderful fun; sure, the Mari Llwyd was utterly terrifying. But it doesn't make up for what seemed to be a storyline thrown together at random and a world whose rules I never quite understood (if there were any at all).

Long ago, I realized that a book can only be as good as its villains. I sometimes wonder if Ms. Cooper really thought through what the Dark was responsible for... what it really meant to banish it, and what it meant to have it in the first place. Because it's when she dives into the supernatural, and what being an Old One really means, and how Old Ones relate to the world, that the plot, characters, and Arthurian legend start to seem muddled, forced, and rushed. Two huge questions remained for me at the end of this series: Why was it important to banish the Dark if evil still dwells in the heart of man? What was so dangerous about it in the first place?

My final word: get these books at the library, and read them while you're young. Maybe there's something you'll see that I can't anymore.

Susan Cooper is responsible for my love of young adult fiction. When my daughter, now almost 21, was in the 3rd grade she brought home Greenwitch from her school library thinking it was a Halloween book. She quickly discovered it was a little too advanced for her so I ended up reading it to her. I then worked a deal with the librarian to send home the remaining books in the series! After that I would check out any Susan Cooper book I could find when we were in the childrens section of the public library.

I hadn't read in years... I now have a full library of young adult fiction, read everything my daughter read as she grew up and she and I share a love of fantasy all thanks to Susan Cooper.

Thanks, Susan Cooper, for starting me reading for my own pleasure again and for years of shared books between my daughter and I... She still remembers the day she brought home Greenwitch...

This is a wonderfully creative and imaginative series. Don't be fooled by the movie of a similar name (The Seeker" the Dark is Rising.) The movie has made many, many changes. Discover the real mystery and excitement in Susan Cooper's writing.

A friend of mine gave me this boxed set in the summer of 2007. I think I read the entire set three times in a week. And I'm pushing 40, it's not like I'm an impressionable pre-teen. These books contain magic. Every now and then, I feel compelled to read them all again.

I am buying the set as a present for my niece, who is almost 10. She is a voracious reader, and I think that she will love these books as much as I do. The "Old Magic" in them is both more complicated and more simple than any of the childish dreck (imho) that is published for young people today.

I never really enjoyed reading as a kid, I was into other things... but when I started one of these books, I couldn't put it down, and usually carried on reading the whole series. I have re-read them several times over my life and they're still some of my favorites.

This is not an epic saga like Harry Potter or Bored of the Rings. Instead it is a very manageable series--the books are short enough to get through, and each of the books stand on their own as exciting and very different stories from each other, still weaving a common thread which comes together toward the end of the series.

This series seems timeless, with present enough settings to feel modern, yet alluding to the arthurian legends in a motif that feels ancient and mystical, all pulling together in a unique approach to the classic battle of good vs evil. The intertwining of present day kids' adventure with the old and magical makes them highly engaging, especially for kids. They influenced me in many ways, and to this day I think of the wise people in my life as "old ones," (the term this series gives to the chosen ones of the 'light' who undertake to keep the powers of the 'dark' in check).

I highly recommend this series. One need not be a fantasy junkie to love these books because they're about regular kids who play a part in a very fantastical adventure. The border between reality and fantasy is nicely blurred by these stories... they certainly captured my imagination, and still do.

I thoroughly enjoyed these books. They got better as they went along. I loved the weaving in of Arthurian legend.

I had read this series when I was younger, and really enjoyed them. When I saw the preview for the move based on the second book, it made me want to read them again.

They are just as good the 2nd time around and I bought the set for my nephews (ages 8-10). I highly recommend this for adults and children.