Way back when I was a teenager, I read Over Sea, Under Stone and found it generally engaging but not good enough to make me grab the next one. But over the years, I’ve heard the almost univocal opinion that the next book, The Dark Is Rising, is far-and-away the best of the series and works effectively as a standalone. I also heard that it’s strongly associated with the Christmas season, so as the days grew shorter in December, I decided to give Susan Cooper’s classic middle-grade fantasy a try. 

The Dark Is Rising has an extremely simple plot, with the young lead coming into powers he’d never known and being guided by a series of mentors as he learns the skills necessary to turn back the dark. It makes for a remarkably passive protagonist, tossed about by established powers while having little understanding of what he’s meant to do, but while neither character nor plot are especially noteworthy, the whole package still manages to work pretty well. 

Part of that is the context. The Dark Is Rising is a relatively short novel with a child protagonist. And while children’s literature may be full of leads that are smarter than all the adults on the room, a kid actually acting like a kid has a ring of truth to it. As an adult reader, it’s also refreshing to see a middle-grade fantasy where the lead can actually rely on wise authority figures in his life. 

A middle-grade novel can have a simple plot and a passive protagonist and still be plenty entertaining to a young reader. In my experience, budding fantasy readers have a tendency to devour any age-appropriate material they can get their hands on. But if The Dark Is Rising is going to be the sort of book that’s worth revisiting for an adult, it has to have another element that’s genuinely exceptional. And here, that’s the atmosphere. It’s a book rooted deeply in midwinter, with a snowy landscape brought vividly to life in a way that brings both magic and foreboding. It creates anticipation from the very first pages and crescendos in a third quarter that’s both beautiful and claustrophobic. The plot climax is competent enough, but this is the true high point of the book. 

While the plot and characterization are fairly simple, the writing style is a bit denser than you’d expect to see in contemporary middle-grade fantasy, so I’d probably only hand this to an elementary-school kid if they were a pretty strong reader. But it’s very well-done middle-grade fantasy with a fantastic atmosphere that makes it worth the read for adults as well. 

Recommended if you like: atmospheric middle-grade fantasy.

Can I use it for Bingo? It has a Generic Title and includes what sure feel like Impossible Places.

Overall rating: 16 of Tar Vol’s 20. Four stars on Goodreads.