Recommendations from our site
“This is a story about a boy who comes of age. It’s around his eleventh birthday, which coincides with the winter solstice. It’s a book that’s very British – some people think of it as English, but there’s quite a heavy Welsh aspect to it, too – depicting a dark, folkloric, oppressive coming-into-reality that children go through. I think it’s one of the reasons why I felt attuned to it as a child: it marks the character’s move into adulthood too young, and an understanding of the world that takes away all of the certainties and the pleasantnesses, and replaces them with dark, historic, unpleasant facts about the past and about the way the world is.” Read more...
Alex Pheby, Novelist
“he Dark is Rising is actually the second book of the series, but much like The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, it dominates its predecessor – Over Sea, Under Stone – in popular imagination. The central story is a textbook fantasy quest. But the book is brought to life by the contrast between this deeply unsettling magical world and the cosy world where we first found him. Best read around Christmas time, somewhere snug.” Read more...
