Product Description

This is the first of the five books which form Susan Cooper's The Dark Is Rising sequence. Three children, on holiday in Cornwall, discover an ancient map which leads them into a search for a buried grail.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #41824 in Books
• Published on: 2005-06-30
• Format: Illustrated
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 224 pages

About the Author
Susan Cooper was born in Buckinghamshire, but now lives in America. Her fantasy sequence, The Dark Is Rising, has won numerous internation awards, including the Newbery Medal, and has been translated into eleven languages.

Customer Reviews

A good adventurous read -sort of Famous Five meet King Arthur!
Simon, Jane & Barney are off on their summer holidays with their mum & dad, to a holiday house in the village of "Trewissick" on the Cornish Coast, where they will all stay with Great-Uncle-Merry in a rambling old house overlooking the sea. They are all thrilled to be going to Cornwall, but none more so than Barney, the youngest, who loves the stories of Arthurian Legend and dreams of stories of King Arthur and his Knights. He can't wait to see Cornwall, the land of the Pendragon, the centre of Arthurian myth.

On a miserable rainy day at the beginning of their holiday, the children decide to make an adventure of exploring the house where they are staying. Locked cabinets, chests and personal papers are out of bounds but they are free to explore the rest of the house as they like. In real Enid Blyton style they soon discover a secret stairway hidden behind a large heavy wardrobe in the boys' bedroom... and off they go to explore.... An ancient treasure map soon emerges & the children have found an adventure for their holiday... secrets to discover.

But are they out of their depth? They don't seem to be the only people chasing after hidden treasure. Soon, they find an ally in Great-Uncle-Merry & Rufus, the dog... but can they reach the treasure before the sour Mr & Miss Withers, the rude ruddy-faced boy, Billy and the man they think is the vicar?!!

A good, innocent, Famous-Five-style adventure story (first published In 1965), with just a hint of Arthurian legend & magic thrown in. From reading other reviews, it sounds as though the magic & legend are developed in the rest of the series, so here I guess just the foundations are laid. The children are all very cheery, optimistic, happy-go-lucky, although individual characters aren't developed at all in the story. Well-written, with more depth than an Enid Blyton story, lacks pace in a few places but overall recommended.

Traditional but very good
I hope I don't upset too many Tolkienistas if I say that this is to the Dark is Rising series what The Hobbit is to The Lord of the Rings. That is, while it does set the scene and introduces some of the characters, it was written much earlier in the writer's career, isn't as polished or inventive and was clearly written for younger children. Written as it was in the early 60s, there's the usual copying of Blytonesque characters and somewhat clunky dialogue from children's series books. But these faults never stopped children from liking the Narnia books and they are much less intrusive here. That said, I'm not sure all that would bother the average eight-year-old because the story moves along at a brisk pace, there's no pompous pseudo-archaic language to get in the way and there are no "boring bits". I think this would be of limited interest if you've already read the other four books but it might be something to get a younger relative interested.

Over sea
"Over Sea Under Stone" is perhaps the weakest of the classic "Dark is Rising" series, though in itself it's quite a good book. In this, Susan Cooper kicks off her epic fantasy sequence with doses of Celtic legend, a good vs. evil battle, and a hunt for a mysterious, magical treasure.

Simon, Jane and Barney Drew have arrived at their great-uncle Merriman's seaside house for a vacation -- and rapidly become quite bored with the seaside village. But when exploring the attic, they unearth a very, very old map that is somehow connected with the legendary King Arthur. As anyone else would do, the kids begin the search to find a golden grail that is somewhere nearby.

But they soon find that they are not the only ones who want the map. A seemingly genial pair of vacationers are being slightly too inquisitive, and someone breaks into Merriman's house in search of the map. And Merriman reveals the origins of the map -- and an ages-old conflict between good and evil that hinges on who finds the grail first.

Taken alone, "Over Sea Under Stone" is a solid, even excellent fantasy story. But it's a little out of sync with the rest of the series. However it sets excellent groundwork, has an intriguing storyline and a good mix of folklore and Arthuriana, and offers us one of the most mysterious and likable "magic mentors," Merriman Lyon. It starts off with every kid's fantasy -- treasure maps and ancient kings -- and rapidly blossoms into something much more.

One of the most noticeable differences between this and Cooper's later books is the writing; the writing in her later books becomes much more verbose and descriptive and magical. Here it's quite stark and plain, without a great deal of detail or mystical mind-blowing. "Over Sea" is mostly very prosaic and very rooted in our world, and many important concepts in the series aren't even touched on.

The Drew kids are the sort of siblings that pop up in old E. Nesbit books -- plucky, chirpy and on vacation. There isn't a lot of difference between their individual personalities, although they are quite likable. Their "uncle" Merriman is pleasant, humorous, but at the same time Cooper implies that still waters run deep. The malevolent Mr. and Miss Withers are initially very jovial and kindly, but you can sense something rotten underneath.

The first of the "Dark is Rising" books is somewhat out of sync with the novels that follow, but taken alone it's still an excellent, well-written fantasy adventure.