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Jul 04, 2010

karen rated it:

how great is ariel?? ariel is exactly this great:

i had never read this series, but had always wanted to. so ariel straight up mailed it to me! like santa! in june!

ariel, i have also always wanted a choker made of rubies and emeralds and sweet sweet diamonds.

while i am waiting for that,i will write a review for this book. obviously, there are going to be comparisons to that narnia series - british siblings shuttled off to a spooky house with secret More...

25 comments like (32 people liked it)

Jun 08, 2010

Aerin rated it:

Okay, before I get started on this, I just have to say a wholehearted public thank-you to Ariel, who sent me a beautiful, shiny new box set of the entire Dark Is Rising sequence, after seeing I had one of the books on my to-read wishlist. When I opened the package and saw their beautifully-drawn covers, my inner ten-year-old did a backflip of joy, and my outer 26-year-old fawned over them in an embarrassingly Gollum-like fashion. So pretty, my preciousssss.

However, despite the love More...

22 comments like (14 people liked it)

Apr 22, 2008

Phoebe rated it:

My initial reaction was that this felt well-worn: a Lewisian family of British children, summering in Cornwall, find a mysterious passageway behind a wardrobe. However, my initial reaction was dead wrong. The characters here are exceedingly well-drawn. The Drew children are bratty, catty, prone to shortness of breath and leg cramps. They're incredibly real, something that's all-too-lacking in a lot of children's fantasy literature. Barney, the youngest, with an Arthurian obsession, is especially More...

0 comments like (5 people liked it)

Sep 30, 2009

Ian rated it:

Over Sea, Under Stone is a classic tale with an Arthurian base, showing how kid power can be better than adulthood. It also shows the relationships of the forces of good and evil, and how they can create conflict, sometimes war.
Three kids, Barney, Simon, and Jane, go on vacation with their parents to visit their mysterious Great-Uncle Merry (Professor Merriman Lyon), sometimes called “Gumerry”. Upon exploring the Grey House, their vacation residence, they find an ancient manuscript crumb More...

2 comments like (2 people liked it)

Dec 13, 2009

Nikki rated it:

Very few people [who know me at all:] are unaware that The Dark Is Rising is possibly my favourite series of books in the history of ever. Still, I haven't done a series of proper reviews for them, which is a horrible shame, and I'm going to do that this time through.

This is probably the fifteenth time I've read Over Sea, Under Stone, give or take a few times. Someone I knew recommended skipping it, since it's the most childish book in the series -- written, if I recall correctly, we More...

13 comments like (5 people liked it)

Aug 17, 2007

YiShun rated it:

I saw Susan Cooper speak at a writer's conference back in February and have been meaning to read this sequence ever since then. (Never mind that the rest of the conference only had me itching to get back to my keyboard.)
If you haven't yet read The Chronicles of Narnia, you'll love love love this book. If you've already read it, you'll still love this book. Its characters are ever so much more engaging than Edmund, Lucy, Peter, and Susan are, and although the basic premise of good versus e More...

3 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jul 22, 2008

Snorkle rated it:

On vacation with their Great Uncle Merry three young children stumble upon an old map and suddenly they are thrust into an adventure they never could have imagined.

The beginning was a little slow getting into it and I even considered discarding it, but as I trudged along through it I found myself getting more and more intrigued. It had a feeling of The Chronicles of Narnia mixed with Nancy Drew, making it suspenseful, but fitting into the Fantasy mold. I wanted to read it because of More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Jun 05, 2010

Elizabeth rated it:

This is the third time I've read this book. I read it as a child and again in my twenties. It still has all the charm of a summer's day on the coast of Cornwall. I remember how hot it got, with the wind off the sea, which was a unique experience for me. Cooper captures it better than I can say it here. I could easily imagine the house, the town, and the headland from Cooper's descriptions. She has a wonderful ability to create a scene. She also makes me feel like the children are really the age More...

8 comments like (5 people liked it)

Nov 10, 2007

Lily rated it:

"That struggle [between good and evil] goes on all round us all the time, like two armies fighting. And sometimes one of them seems to be winning and sometimes the other, but neither has ever triumphed altogether. Nor ever will, for there is something of each in every man."
--Great-Uncle Merry, p. 74

For a series that's about a titanic struggle between the Light and the Dark, The Dark Is Rising sequence has a great deal of grey area. This doesn't arise so much in this f More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Aug 31, 2007

Jess rated it:

Those 3 little stars look so pitiful, but really I mostly love this book because of what follows in the series. Taken by its lonesome, it's just a good adventure story of Simon, Jane and Barney doing their best against the forces of the Dark. The backstory isn't very fleshed out, with only a hint of Great Uncle Merry's true identity and the Arthurian themes that are so important later. But the children sound like real siblings and nothing they do seems beyond the reach of your average bright More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Oct 04, 2007

Michelle rated it:

I still can't quite believe I missed these books when I was a kid. They are so up my alley.

This is the first book in the series, which I didn't know until I'd already read the second one (The Dark is Rising). But really that's ok because this book involves an entirely different set of kids.

One of the things I like best about these books is that they stand the test of time. They don't feel particularly dated, which is really nice.

And I also like all three of More...

1 comment like (3 people liked it)

Dec 13, 2009

Tyas rated it:

This one doesn't feel quite magical as The Dark Is Rising, and the 'adventure by the sea and in dark caves' theme is probably overused in children book already nowadays, but the prose still shines.

What also makes me love this book is how the characters and the family life feel so natural.

What worries me right now is that I have three books of this sequence already, including the last one, but I haven't got two books in the middle. I think I should complete my collectio More...

4 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 06, 2012

Liz rated it:

It doesn't matter that this book was written 30 years ago, it easily withstands the test of time. It's actually superior to so much of the children's literature that's being put out these days.

The writing harkens back to a time when children were expected to have a much higher reading ability at a far younger age than they're allowed to get away with today. This book doesn't talk down to its audience whether it be child or adult, it doesn't dumb down the vocabulary or spend pages repet More...

0 comments like

Sep 18, 2011

Julia rated it:

I bought this for my son a couple of years ago, who read the first couple of pages and then didn't pick it up again. I picked it up recently because I had nothing else that was new to me in the house, and I have to have *something* to read at all times. So I read it. And I see why my son wasn't enthused, but I persisted.

Cooper's first book in this series seems to be written for smaller children (I would have torn this up in a day at about 6 or 7 years old, but maybe that's just me); More...

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Jul 26, 2011

Katya rated it:

I originally read this book when I was about 11, and at the time it was my least favourite in the series. I had read The Dark Is Rising first, and grown very attached to Will, and was horrified and offended that he wasn't even in the book. Who were these interloping Drew children? Of course I got used to them as I read the rest of the series, and now find them quite real and sympat. Only Barney's epiphany about Merry's name right at the end seemed contrived.
I imagine I was also offended by the l More...

0 comments like

Jul 08, 2011

Sienna rated it:

One day, when I was eight or nine and home sick, probably with a sinus infection, for I was the princess of sinusitis, my mom brought me a copy of The Dark is Rising. Neither of us realized it was the second book (loosely — there is minor character overlap) in a sequence, though in retrospect I don't see why that would have stopped an insatiable reader/mythology buff/Anglophile from giving a book that's obviously right up my alley a shot. Yet somehow I never actually read it or its companions. More...

0 comments like

Jun 06, 2011

Greg rated it:

This was a series I always circled around as a youth. I received The Grey King as a gift and found it interesting but bizarre and way outside of my box. I thought to myself that I ought to read the volumes leading up to it, but never did. Now I have kids that are bringing home and exploring all sorts of new fiction for kids, and it made me nostalgic for my own youth, and so I'm finally making my way through the series. So far, so good, and I am finding that the writing in the first volume is ver More...

0 comments like

May 01, 2011

Jessica rated it:

I'd heard Susan Cooper's The Dark Is Rising sequence recommended often enough that I bought the whole set at once, and the first book, Over Sea, Under Stone, has been my bathroom reading this past week. I had to fight myself very very hard to keep from taking the book out of the bathroom so that I could keep up the pretence of actually reading Serious Academic Literature, but you can probably guess what book has kept me most engaged this past week.

Over Sea, Under Stone is a fantasy adv More...

0 comments like

Mar 30, 2011

Melissa rated it:

Over Sea, Under Stone is the first book in the Dark Is Rising series. Despite that, I always seem to read this 2nd as the 2nd book (The Dark is Rising) is my favorite book and I always read it first. But really, this book is kind of a side story to the rest of the series despite it being first so it doesn't really matter the order your read the first two.

The Drew children, three siblings, are on vacation at a mysterious place called the Grey House in a quaint little town by the sea. More...

0 comments like

Feb 26, 2011

Nikki rated it:

I wish we could set multiple read dates on GoodReads. One day I'll run out of alternate editions, if I keep using this workaround. Anyway, my other review of Over Sea, Under Stone is here; this is a quick note of how I felt this time round, especially in light of the fact that I'm doing a children's lit course at the moment.

That's what makes me give it five stars, really. As a book for me as an adult, Over Sea, Under Stone is a bit lacking. I do think Susan Cooper has a deft hand for More...

1 comment like (2 people liked it)

Jan 27, 2011

robyn rated it:

I just realized that in reviewing The Dark is Rising, I called it the first book in the Dark is Rising series, which is wrong - THIS one is. But it's so different in flavor and tone from the other books that even though I read it last, it didn't make any difference to the story arc. The quest of the Grail is completed in this story, but since there are lots of quests - some mentioned, rather in the way of Watson mentioning a teaser of a case of Holmes' that he has no intention of telling us abou More...

0 comments like

Aug 01, 2010

Erin rated it:

After hearing a lot about this series, I was very disappointed in how pedestrian it was. Perhaps the rest of the series is better, but this one was very formulaic and not especially exciting. Following along with C.S. Lewis's The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, it all starts on a rainy day with a bunch of British kids bored and playing in a big house. They start their adventure by finding an attic behind a wardrobe rather than actually in it. At one point, the dark side attempts to seduce More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jun 23, 2010

Shannon rated it:

This young adult book follows Simon, Jane and Barney on an adventure during a vacation in Cornwall. In sharp contrast to some other recent reads, Cooper does a great job of establishing personalities for these three main characters early in the book. This made it easy for me to envision the sibling dynamics and care about the characters.

During one of their first days on holiday, the children find an ancient map in the attic of their rental cottage. With the help of their Great Unc More...

0 comments like

Apr 17, 2010

Janis rated it:

Children's fantasy novel. Book one in The Dark is Rising Sequence by Susan Cooper. British children Simon, Jane, and Barney Drew are on vacation in Cornwall with their parents at the invitation of their well-loved yet mysterious "Great-Uncle Merry," a distinguished college professor who appears and disappears frequently in their lives. While on vacation, the children explore the sea captain's house Merry has rented, and find an old map that is suddenly of incredible interest to others More...

0 comments like

Dec 07, 2009

Tina rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

0 comments like

Oct 27, 2009

Leah rated it:

Did anyone else read The Dark is Rising Sequence as a kid? Well, I didn't. I completely missed the boat on this one, but after hearing about how good they were, I decided to finally give them a shot. I was lucky enough to find a boxed set of the books at a library book sale a little while ago and am now working my way through the series.

I enjoyed this first book and am excited that the series focuses on Arthurian legend for the younger set. I was always a fan of King Arthur inspired More...

0 comments like

Aug 28, 2009

Carrie rated it:

I read this first book in the Dark is Rising series, because The Grey King (#4) is a Newbery Medal winner and The Dark is Rising (#2) won a Newbery Honor. In order to read those titles, I wanted to read the rest of the series in sequence. However, Over Sea, Under Stone was not what I was expecting, so I'm not sure how compelled I will be to continue... I was hoping for magic and fantasy, but there was none of that. It was a contemporary adventure (set in the 1960s, the time of publication) with More...

0 comments like

Aug 16, 2010

Jason rated it:

This is the first in The Dark is Rising series, and it's a bit weaker than the others. It's also a more separate story from the others, if I recall. Kids find a map, clues lead them to a place, and they go down into the place to find whatever it is they find there. The mystery of the unraveling is what kept the pages turning for me. I think what they find is related to the rest of the series, but can't recall for certain. Also, the main villain is more or less a recurring character, and he' More...

0 comments like

Nov 09, 2009

Bettie rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

0 comments like

Aug 25, 2011

Stuart rated it:

This book is reasonably enjoyable and, for a young adult book, surprisingly well written with a wide vocabulary and glimmers of adult humor and adult philosophy. The setting is well created and there are moments where it becomes very compelling- the confrontation between Barney and Mr. Hastings being the highlight of the book. The problem is, for such a short book, it's surprisingly kind of dry and drawn out, and it feels like very little actually happens. Additionally, many of the characters fe More...

0 comments like