The Dark Is Rising (Susan Cooper) ***** my sturdy childhood friend
Mary sniffed. "On my eleventh birthday, I was beaten and sent to bed."
"Good heavens," said her mother, "fancy you remembering that. And what a way to describe it. In point of fact you got one hard wallop on the bottom, and well-deserved, too, as far as I can recollect."
"It was my birthday," Mary said, tossing her pony-tail. "And I've never forgotten."
"Give yourself time," Robin said cheerfully. "Three years isn't much."
"And you were a very young eleven," Mrs Stanton said, chewing reflectively.
"Huh!" said Mary. "And I suppose Will isn't?"
For a moment everyone looked at Will. He blinked in alarm at the ring of contemplating faces, and scowled down into his plate so that nothing of him was visible except a thick slanting curtain of brown hair. It was most disturbing to be looked at by so many people all at once, or at any rate by more people than one could look at in return. He felt almost as if he were being attacked. And he was suddenly convinced that it could in some way be dangerous to have so many people thinking about him, all at the same time. As if someone unfriendly might hear...
"Will," Gwen said at length, "is rather an old eleven."
This book makes me homesick for bustling farm life in England, a village and family that have never been mine. It's the 1970s, so music comes from the kitchen radio and no one's into Hello Kitty or Burberry plaid. With no more than a sudden silence, The Dark toggles between Will's familiar, warm little life and a perfectly overlapping world where time slips to and fro and the very roads have power. My favorite part is when Will's family goes carolling for Christmas, and time swings open mid-solo.
The conflicts in this epic struggle between light and dark are mysteriously small. Like Harry Potter, Will is simply Chosen. I should be offended at this miraculous inevitability, but I'm not. It's...tantric storytelling? Anyway, I'm happy to just follow behind Will as he uncovers the old magic of the land.
P.S. Walden Media teamed up with Fox to produce a movie version last year. From the plot summary, it looks as wretched as a movie where Walden Media teams up with Fox. Will's 14, American, and has a secret twin.