Over Sea, Under Stone (Dark Is Rising Sequence)

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It’s time for a The Dark is Rising sequence readathon again! If you wish to join, you can do so via this blog. It’s the perfect time of year to reread the books, at least the second one in particular, with the winter solstice coming up. I always try and read them around this time of year!

Over Sea, Under Stone is a young adult fantasy novel published in 1965 by the English author Susan Cooper. It is the first of five books in Cooper's The Dark is Rising series. It tells the story of the three Drew children who while on holiday discover secrets related to the legend of King Arthur.Mr. Withers and his sister Polly: Over-friendly tourists who invite the Drews on their boat; they are agents of the Dark. Cooper wrote her first book for young readers in response to a publishing house competition; "Over Sea, Under Stone" would later form the basis for her critically acclaimed five-book fantasy sequence, "The Dark Is Rising." The fourth book in the series, "The Grey King," won the Newbery Medal in 1976. By that time, Susan Cooper had been living in America for 13 years, having moved to marry her first husband, an American professor, and was stepmother to three children and the mother of two. One day not long after that, a burglar breaks into Grey House. Curiously, the burglar ignored traditional valuables like jewelry or cash and instead went straight for the bookshelves. The parents are mystified by this, but Simon, Jane, and Barney believe they know the truth: The burglar was looking for the old map manuscript. Now that they realize the value of the manuscript in their possession, the siblings decide it's time to come clean to Merriman about everything. After hearing their story, Merriman confirms what they were all thinking: The manuscript is a treasure map. Moreover, the treasure in question is none other than the Holy Grail for which Arthur's knights famously quested. And finally, Merriman admits that the children are in great danger, for there are forces of darkness--"The Dark," as he terms it--after the Grail who will stop at nothing to retrieve it. And while Merriman worries for their safety, he also encourages them to seek out the Grail so they can claim it on behalf of "The Light," as the alternative is too dark a possibility to bear.

Over sea, under stone. Illustrated by Margery Gill (first U.S. edition). LCC. Retrieved 2013-09-06. Merriman Lyon: The first Old One, Lyon shares a special bond with Will Stanton, last of the line. A friend of the Drew family for over a generation, he helps and protects Barney, Jane, and Simon as they quest for the Grail. They occasionally refer to him as "Great Uncle Merry" or "Gumerry". Throughout the series, Merriman is portrayed in numerous historical periods, but particularly as King Arthur's chief adviser, the mythical Merlin; in Silver on the Tree, Arthur calls him "Mer Lion", old English for "my lion". i had never read this series, but had always wanted to. so ariel straight up mailed it to me! like santa! in june! In this story we not only see three young British Middle-class children making fun of the working class, anyone foreign, anyone gay and anyone even remotely different, but we see them doing so completely obliviously. These three children aren't 'bad', in fact they are the 'heroes' of the book, but the problem of the time it was written (60s) is that a lot of people (clearly including this author) held many of these prejudices themselves and had no issue writing these into their own works. In fact, it may have already begun, for a Mr Withers and his sister Polly—living in the neighbourhood—have been to invite the family to come out on their yacht and Jane distinctly feels uncomfortable around them. While Great Uncle Merry does help and support them in searching for the treasure, actually deciphering the map’s clues and finding the treasure is for the three to do. But can they do this on their own? Do the Withers brother and sister catch up with them?

Over Sea, Under Stone

Over Sea, Under Stone features the Drew children, Simon, Jane and Barney, on holiday with their parents and Merriman Lyon, an old family friend, usually referred to by the children as their great-uncle. The writing itself is lovely. Not too fancy, and yet still describing things well. There's a real sense of ominous danger in parts of it, and yet the writing also brings across a feeling of childhood, summer vacations and sunburns and going to see the sea. So yeah. If you put Narnia, the Boxcar Children, and Indiana Jones into a blender, this would be the amazing smoothie that comes out. It was so brilliant (especially Prof Lyon, OMG) and so fun and really unexpectedly creepy. There were several points where I found myself legitimately creeped out (the bad guys were EXCELLENT bad guys). The kids acted and sounded like kids. There were a few grammatical errors, quotation marks missing and things like that, but this was overall a really cool book. Excited for the rest because I looooooove Celtic mythology.