Customer Reviews
Not good for reading aloud - By: Roland Davis, 24 Dec 2007 
I am sorry to confess that I reallly didn't like this book. Reading alll the enthusiastic reviews, I am clearly out-numbered but if I explain why I didn't like it then maybe you can decide whether your mind works like mine or like the books' admirers.
Perhaps the difference is that I read the book aloud & I have the impression most of the reviewers read it alone as children. When you read a book aloud you are very conscious of the quality of the prose & especiallly the dialogue. That, I believe, is the weakness in Susan Cooper's books.
The story is nicely crafted & it is easy to identify with the brave & occasionallly foolish children who are the heroes. But I found the prose excruciating. It is difficult to explain what is wrong but I found myself skipping practicallly every other sentence in order to make it readable. Try reading a page from the Dark is Rising & then a page from Jonathan Stroud's superb "Amulet of Samarkand" & you will know what I am talking about.
I find it difficult to understand why better editing wasn't applied as it would not be difficult to improve Susan Cooper's writing. The answer may be that the book was written a generation ago when people used typewriters & standards were different. Children's books tended to be slower with a dumbed down version of adult prose that sounds pedestrian compared with the lively artistic style of some modern children's writers. Try digging out your old copy of the first of Enid Blyton's adventure stories (Famous 5 I think) & you will be amazed at the uninspiring description of the family getting ready to go on holiday, including getting dressed & having breakfast, which goes on for about 50 pages.
I suspect a lot of the support for this book is nostalgic. If you read it as a child & loved it, go ahead & get it again. If it is new to you, please have a look at a copy in a shop before you buy it in case you find you agree with me about the writing. There is so much excellent children's fiction around, it's a shame to make a mistake.
Great series, awful film - By: B. Cooper, 10 Nov 2007 
A wonderful series such a shame Fox have made such a needless & tragic hash of transferring it to the big screen. Maybe if someone at Fox had actuallly bothered to read Dark is Rising then they may not have made such a soulless & disappointing cure for insomnia of a film.
Time for a new generation to enjoy this - By: Nicky, 02 Nov 2007 I first read these books years ago, & have a much thumbed version on my bookshelf. They were collectively one of my favourite books then, & now a whole new generation can start to enjoy them thanks to the film version of The Dark is Rising.
I persuaded my son (12) to come & see the film with my husband & me, & he loved every bit of it, as did we. When we got home my husband almost beat me to the bookshelf & we have to share it! Time to buy a new copy for him & my son, otherwise my copy will falll apart.
If it takes a film version to bring these books to the notice of a new generation then so be it. These are classic tales of good & evil, Arthurian legends & good old fashioned adventure stories alll mixed together, with common threads running through them. I'm loving them as much now as I did when I first read them.
the dark is rising sequence - By: Nima, 29 Oct 2007 such a great pity there are no unabridged audio book recordings of this series. I suppose they will arrive after the film.
Why oh why are book publishers so slow to audio tape good books without there being a film on the way.
Please publishers do us a favour & audio tape the series but please not as an abridged version. Go the whole hog & do a cover to cover version.
Abridgers never ever get it right.
Senior Librarian
What legends are made of..! - By: DanFolk, 07 Sep 2007 Some authors reallly have a way of weaving landscape, legend, & fantasy together. Susan Cooper is one. I did not read these stories as a child, but instead found them at the age of 32, & am I glad I did! What a wonderful journey...
The Dark is Rising sequence will join the pantheon of stories I will read with my children when they are old enough.
