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The Dark Is Rising (The Dark Is Rising Book 2) Kindle Edition
- LanguageEnglish
- Grade level3 - 7
- Lexile measure920L
- PublisherMargaret K. McElderry Books
- Publication dateDecember 21, 2001
- ISBN-13978-1665932899
-
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Editorial Reviews
Review
"As well as a thrilling, flawlessly structured adventure...The Dark Is Rising is a perfect coming-of-age story." -- The Guardian
From the Publisher
From the Inside Flap
6 cassettes
Performed by Alex Jennings
On the Midwinter Day that is his eleventh birthday, Will Stanton discovers a special gift-- that he is the last of the Old Ones, immortals dedicated to keeping the world from domination by the forces of evil, the Dark. 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. And for the twelve days of Christmas, while the Dark is rising, life for Will is full of wonder, terror, and delight.
From the Back Cover
About the Author
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
The Dark Is Rising
By Susan CooperMargaret K. McElderry Books
Copyright © 1973 Susan CooperAll right reserved.
ISBN: 9780689303173
It was then, without warning, that the fear came.
The first wave caught him as he was crossing the room his bed. It halted him stock-still in the middle of the room, the howl of the wind outside filling his ears. The snow lashed against the window. Will was suddenly deadly cold, yet tingling all over. He was so frightened that he could not move a finger. In a flash of memory he saw again the lowering sky over the spinney, dark with rooks, the big black birds wheeling and circling overhead. Then that was gone, and he saw only the tramp's terrified face and heard his scream as he ran. For a moment, then, there was only a dreadful darkness in his mind, a sense of looking into a great black pit. Then the high howl of the wind died, and he was released.
He stood shaking, looking wildly round the room. Nothing was wrong. Everything was just as usual. The trouble, he told himself, came from thinking. It would be all right if only he could stop thinking and go to sleep. He pulled off his dressing gown, climbed into bed, and lay there looking up at the skylight in the slanting roof. It was covered grey with snow.
He switched off the small bedside lamp, and the night swallowed the room. There was no hint of light even when his eyes had grown accustomed to the dark. Time to sleep. Go on, go to sleep. But although he turned on his side, pulled the blankets up to his chin, and lay there relaxed, contemplating the cheerful fact that it would be his birthday when he woke up, nothing happened. It was no good. Something was wrong.
Will tossed uneasily. He had never known a feeling like this before. It was growing worse every minute. As if some huge weight were pushing at his mind, threatening, trying to take him over, turn him into something he didn't want to be. That's it, he thought: make me into someone else. But that's stupid. Who'd want to? And make me into what? Something creaked outside the half-open door, and he jumped. Then it creaked again, and he knew what it was: a certain floorboard that often talked to itself at night, with a sound so familiar that usually he never noticed it at all. In spite of himself, he still lay listening. A different kind of creak came from further away, in the other attic, and he twitched again, jerking so that the blanket rubbed against his chin. You're just jumpy, he said to himself; you're remembering this afternoon, but really there isn't much to remember. He tried to think of the tramp as someone unremarkable, just an ordinary man with a dirty overcoat and worn-out boots; but instead all he could see once more was the vicious diving of the rooks. "The Walker is abroad...." Another strange crackling noise came, this time above his head in the ceiling, and the wind whined suddenly loud, and Will sat bolt upright in bed and reached in panic for the lamp.
The room was at once a cosy cave of yellow light, and he lay back in shame, feeling stupid. Frightened of the dark, he thought: how awful. Just like a baby. Stephen would never have been frightened of the dark, up here. Look, there's the bookcase and the table, the two chairs and the window seat; look, there are the six little square-riggers of the mobile hanging from the ceiling, and their shadows sailing over there on the wall. Everything's ordinary. Go to sleep.
He switched off the light again, and instantly everything was even worse than before. The fear jumped at him for the third time like a great animal that had been waiting to spring. Will lay terrified, shaking, feeling himself shake, and yet unable to move. He felt he must be going mad. Outside, the wind moaned, paused, rose into a sudden howl, and there was a noise, a muffled scraping thump, against the skylight in the ceiling of his room. And then in a dreadful furious moment, horror seized him like a nightmare made real; there came a wrenching crash, with the howling of the wind suddenly much louder and closer, and a great blast of cold; and the Feeling came hurtling against him with such force of dread that it flung him cowering away.
Will shrieked. He only knew it afterwards; he was far too deep in fear to hear the sound of his own voice. For an appalling pitch-black moment he lay scarcely conscious, lost somewhere out of the world, out in black space. And then there were quick footsteps up the stairs outside his door, and a voice calling in concern, and blessed light warming the room and bringing him back into life again.
Continues...
Excerpted from The Dark Is Risingby Susan Cooper Copyright © 1973 by Susan Cooper. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
From AudioFile
Product details
- ASIN : B000FBJHPS
- Publisher : Margaret K. McElderry Books; Reprint edition (December 21, 2001)
- Publication date : December 21, 2001
- Language : English
- File size : 2321 KB
- Text-to-Speech : Enabled
- Screen Reader : Supported
- Enhanced typesetting : Enabled
- X-Ray : Enabled
- Word Wise : Enabled
- Sticky notes : On Kindle Scribe
- Print length : 232 pages
- Page numbers source ISBN : 0099366010
- Best Sellers Rank: #87,523 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #17 in Children's Arthurian Folk Tales
- #104 in Children's Classic Literature
- #240 in Teen & Young Adult Classic Literature
- Customer Reviews:
About the author
Susan Cooper is best known for her acclaimed five-book fantasy sequence "The Dark is Rising," which won a Newbery Medal, a Newbery Honor Award, and two Carnegie Honor Awards. Her newest books are 2 picturebooks: "The Shortest Day" (her classic solstice poem, illustrated by Carson Ellis), and "The Word Pirates," illustrated by Steven Kellogg. Born in England in 1935, Ms Cooper became a reporter and feature writer for the London Sunday Times--her first boss was James Bond creator Ian Fleming--before moving to the United States in 1963. Her first novels were "Mandrake" and the autobiographical "Dawn of Fear," followed by the complete Dark is Rising sequence (Over Sea, Under Stone; The Dark is Rising; Greenwitch; The Grey King; Silver on the Tree). The sequence, deeply rooted in the rich heritage of Arthurian legend and Celtic mythology, is a classic work of children's literature, still in print after 40 years. Cooper went on to write other well-received children's novels, including "Seaward," "The Boggart" trilogy, "Green Boy," "King of Shadows," "Victory," and "Ghost Hawk" as well as several picture books for young readers with illustrators such as Ashley Bryan and Warwick Hutton. She has also written books for adults, as well as plays and Emmy-nominated screenplays (some in collaboration with her second husband, the actor Hume Cronyn). Recent non-fiction includes her biography of Revels founder Jack Langstaff titled "The Magic Maker." Ms. Cooper lives in Marshfield MA. Visit her on Facebook or on her website at www.thelostland.com.
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These books share some features with some of my other favorites:
1) Harry Potter books by JK Rowling;
2) Artemis Fowl books by Eoin Colfer;
3) Madeleine L'Engle's Time Quartet (A Wrinkle in Time, A Wind in the Door; A Swiftly Tilting Planet; Many Waters);
4) The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster with great line drawings by Jules Feiffer;
5) Septimus Heap books by Angie Sage...Septimus, like Will, is a seventh son of a seventh son;
6) Edward Eager's books (Half-Magic, Magic or Not?, Seven-Day Magic, Magic by the Lake, Knight's Castle, The Well-Wishers, The Thyme Garden).
I was less enthralled with the Chronicles of Narnia as a child and on re-reading them as an adult....they are a bit preachy...and I never have been able to read through the Lord of the Rings (though I loved the great unabridged audiobook version that I listened to in my car while commuting to work a few years ago prior to the release of the movies).
Any of these books can be enjoyed as good stories with quests and adventures, good and evil, with lessons about assuming responsibility, the nature of friendship, perserverance, and loyalty thrown in for good measure. More literate (usually older) folks can appreciate the linguistic and mythological underpinnings of the books.
So if you enjoyed any of the other books I listed above but haven't read The Dark is Rising sequence, why not check it out? But don't bother watching the movie.
The focus this time is no longer on the three Drew children, but on Will Stanton, the youngest of nine children, living in Buckinghamshire. On his 11th birthday, strange events begin to whirl about him as his small village is beset by a winter storm of historic proportions, animals become frightened and wary around him, and he can't walk past a radio without it breaking into screeches of incoherent static. Worse than these odd, but ultimately non-threatening issues however, is the sense of deep dread that is descending on his home, and dire warnings that beings called The Walker and The Rider are abroad in the countryside.
Will soon learns that he is no ordinary boy, and that he has a major role to play in a cosmic battle that has raged since man first began to walk the earth. Beset by supernatural enemies, but aided by fierce allies and his own courage, Will must complete a quest that will keep the Dark from rising.
The first book in "The Dark is Rising" sequence, "Over Sea, Under Stone," was originally written as a one-off, but Ms. Cooper returned to the core ideas of that story and used it as a launching point for a more expansive arc, which begins here. "The Dark is Rising" was a Newbery Honor Book when it was first published, and deservedly so; beautifully written, it is a classic of the genre, with well-composed characters, a sense of wonder, and enough dread based on old English and Celtic mythology to make for a gripping read.
1. Mythos. The Dark Is Rising sequence comes complete with its own universe, myths, cosmic clashes and even eschatology. Like Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, the Dark Is Rising lives and breathes in a very complete world.
In fact, Cooper's mythology is adapted (and not adapted very much) from genuine British folklore and myth. Herne the Hunter, the Drowned Hundred, the Holy Grail, etc.
This gives the books a very "real", very British feel to them and a lot of depth. It also means that enjoyment of these books translates quite easily into an interest in British and Celtic history and myth.
2. Ethos. Will Stanton comes into his powers and inherits grave, serious responsibilities. The Light is engaged not in frivolous games involving broomsticks, but an eternal battle against the forces of the Dark, which seek to destroy humanity. The Light is love and self-sacrifice; the Dark is hatred and exploitation.
3. Just Plain Good Writing.