It treats its child-audienced readers like adults and with dignity. Thus - it does not FEEL like a children's novel - nor at any point will a listener feel condescended to by the novel. Unlike the tales of the other kid sorcerer, Will's story wraps around archetypal imagery and highly abstract themes from the vantage of a sympathizable 'everyboy' protagonist. The accomplished narrator, too, I insist performs a conscientious and careful re-telling of what is, essentially, a dark and pre-adolescent Arthurian legend. The effect is enchanting and - at times - unsettling. Cooper interweaves somber Celtic myth with modern middle-class life. The appeal of this piece to a non-child 'Audible' listener should be akin to that of well-done animation and fairy tales. If it is unrealistic and predictable, then it is so only to the degree that all children's novels don't pay the same attention to place and plot-twist as some adult novels. That being said, this is an extraordinary children's book. Will Stanton was the Harry Potter of MY childhood - a hermetic, pagan, and somewhat fatalistic Harry Potter - but a kid wizard nonetheless. Interweaving ancient Celtic and English traditions with the legends of the Buckinghamshire hills and valleys where she grew up, Susan Cooper has written a superlative dramatic fantasy of the eternal conflict between good and evil out of which all myth is made.ĭark Fanstasy for Exceptionally Gifted Children! This book is a rare act of creative imagination in which the listener will be equally moved by the warm happy village life Will shares with his large family and the nearly overwhelming danger he encounters, often in other centuries and places, while he seeks the Signs and learns their power. And for the twelve days of Christmas, while the Dark is rising, life for Will is full of wonder, terror, and delight. At once, he is plunged into a quest for the six magical Signs that will one day aid the Old Ones in the final battle between the Dark and the Light. On the Midwinter Day that is his eleventh birthday, Will Stanton discovers a special gift: he is the last of the Old Ones, immortals dedicated to keeping the world from domination by the forces of evil, the Dark.

Susan cooper the dark is rising series