Sopra il mare sotto la terra (1965)

The first book of the series is aimed at a slightly younger set of readers, but even here, you can see the bones of the later books of the sequence, like Ms. Cooper was just getting a sense of what she wanted to write. ( )

I missed The Dark Is Rising books when I was a kid, but listened to an episode of Backlisted devoted to them and thought they'd be worth a try. And indeed the first is good stuff – adventure very much at the scale of ordinary children, with their secret concerns and perils and feeling of a much larger world of adults they don't understand. Fascinating to see what children in the 1960s carried in their pockets: string, a candle stub, thread, matches all apparently quite commonplace (but very lucky if you needed to explore a secret cave). ( )

A family with three children go to cornwell on holiday, along with their mysterious uncle Merry.
Eh? i'm not sure i'd have liked reading this as a kid, its kind of creepy, then again maybe kid-me wouldn't have felt it as much.
It's a childrens book so i wasn't actually expected anything really bad to happen, nevertheless the story has a Mundane sense of evil to it which was kind of disturbing. Its not ghosts or monsters but people who are the danger, but which people, what do they want and how far are they willing to go to get it? It felt at times like a kids version of 'the Wicker Man' :lol .
Its quite a fast paced book and very easy to picture the goings on, and all the characters stand out quite vividly. ( )

I know I read this as a kid but I didn't remember much of it. ( )

Susan Cooper writes a wonderful story and The Dark is Rising series is among her best work. I find the characters relatable and engaging but she truly shines in her storytelling which draws you into both the current story and all the back story too. ( )