Silver on the Tree: The Dark is Rising by Susan Cooper

Title: Silver on the Tree: The Dark is Rising #5
Author: Susan Cooper
Publication: Scholastic, paperback, originally published in 1977
Genre: Juvenile fantasy/series
Setting: Wales

Description: Will Stanton, the main protagonist of The Dark is Rising sequence, is fishing with two of his brothers on Midsummer’s Eve when he realizes “that a part of his life which had been sleeping was broad awake once more.”

France 2021, Day 5, on the way to Nimes

I knew Friday would be the most stressful day and I am happy to report that we survived and I only became enraged once or twice. Fortunately, the taxi arrived promptly at the hotel door and we didn’t have to walk a kilometer down the steep hill with our luggage in the rain (my mother was sure our wheeled suitcases would take off with us clinging for dear life – I pointed out this would be one way to arrive quickly). He brought us to Avallon, a town 20 kilometers away on the River Cousin, which some feel could have been the Avalon of King Arthur. There were no knights of the Round Table or anything else at the Gare, which, most unfortunately for us, was closed for renovation.

The Arena in Nimes, which still
hosts bullfights!

A Perfect Gentle Knight by Kit Pearson - and the danger of too much imagination

Title: A Perfect Gentle Knight
Author: Kit Pearson
Publication: Penguin Canada, hardcover, 2007
Genre: Children’s Fiction
Setting: 1950s Vancouver
Audience: Middle Grade verging on Young Adult

Description: The six Bell children have relied on each other and their passion for the Knights of the Round Table to cope with losing their mother three years ago.  Their father, who was in the car accident too, is also grieving but he stays in his study and only emerges on Sundays to take the children to church and out to dinner.   The rest of the week they attend school but otherwise run wild; Sebastian, the eldest at 14, leads his siblings in knightly games every afternoon and even the 6-year-old twins are pages, enthusiastically practicing their swordsmanship.  But Sebastian is being bullied at school, Roz decides she wants to be a normal junior high student, and the three youngest children are becoming rude and grubby.   Cordelia (Corrie), the narrator, begins to worry that the game is getting out of hand and is unnerved when Sebastian tells her he is the reincarnation of Sir Lancelot.  She holds the family together as long as she can,  terrified of precipitating a disaster by confiding in an adult until it is almost too late.

Over Sea, Under Stone by Susan Cooper #1965Club

The 1965 Club is a meme in which two prolific bloggers, Simon from Stuck in a Book and Karen from Kaggsy's Bookish Ramblings, promote a specific year of published books. Anyone can join in by reading and reviewing a book published in 1965 and adding a link to that book's review in the comments on Simon's blog.  1944,1968, 1951,1977 have also been promoted.

Title: Over Sea, Under Stone
Author: Susan Cooper
Publication: Atheneum, hardcover, 1965 (paperback reprint 2000)
Genre: Children’s fiction/fantasy

Plot: Simon, Jane, Barney, and their parents travel to Cornwall for a holiday with their Great Uncle Merry. He has rented an old house in the village of Trewissick that comes with a friendly dog, Rufus, and a seemingly jolly housekeeper, Mrs. Palk. On their first excursion, the children discover a mysterious yacht and make an enemy, an unexpectedly hostile local boy. They also explore the house and find a hidden door that leads to a fusty musty dusty attic, in which they are lucky enough to find a secret map tucked under the floorboards. It is delightfully ancient with Latin inscriptions, and is so clearly a treasure map that the children instinctively agree not to tell their parents they found it. However, their attempts to search for what they optimistically hope is King Arthur’s grail bring them into dangerous contact with menacing individuals who want the unknown loot for themselves. As the children fight to locate and save the treasure, Great Uncle Merry turns out to be the key to the vanquishing their rivals in a surprisingly dark introduction to The Dark is Rising series.

Audience: Fans of juvenile fantasy or classic 20th century English adventure stories

credit: Alison MacAdam, NPR

My Impressions: Cooper’s first book is a family adventure with only hints of fantasy in it: is the sought-after treasure King Arthur’s grail and do the dark enemies in pursuit have supernatural powers? I enjoyed Over Sea, Under Stone as a child but had forgotten both how scary it is for the children when the bad guys are after them (especially when they are separated and being pursued or have been kidnapped alone) and how different this book is from subsequent entries in the series, which are straight fantasy. It was obvious that Cooper’s style and interests had evolved but in this edition she actually explains that she wrote the book in response to a competition honoring E. Nesbit, which sought a “family adventure story” in return for a £1,000 prize and publication. The Arthurian elements emerged once she began writing and, as in many such stories, the parents are either gone or primarily absent.

I met Cooper, who lives in Greater Boston, on two occasions but unfortunately they were the type of crowded autographing sessions where you barely get time to murmur your admiration. It is interesting that her second marriage was to Hume Cronyn, who performed, with his then wife Jessica Tandy, in the Broadway production of Foxfire, which he co-wrote with Cooper.  The two couples became friendly, stayed in touch, and consoled each other later on.

Source: I bought a Puffin paperback on a family vacation to Bermuda when I was 11. I hope it is not lost but it certainly isn't on the shelf with its siblings.  I had to get a copy from the library when I had a yearning to reread.  If you have not read this series, it is not too late, even for adult readers.

Off the Blog: Today, I was doing a presentation on credit building earlier to a group of Hispanic elementary school parents in East Boston.  Someone was there to translate my English to Spanish but it was challenging to simplify the concepts so they wouldn’t get lost in translation yet still get the message across.

The Camelot Kids (book review)

Title: The Camelot Kids
Author: Ben Zackheim, @zackheim - Illustrations/design by Nathan Fox, Ian Greenlee

Publication Information: eBook 2014, paperback 2015 (link for purchase).  Crimson Myth Press

Genre: Juvenile Fantasy

Plot:  What would you do if an odd girl in a hooded cloak said, "You know you're a descendant of King Arthur's knight, Lancelot, right?" You'd probably do the same thing 14-year-old orphan Simon Sharp does: back away nice and slow. The difference is Simon's Camelot-obsessed parents recently died under mysterious circumstances.