Book two of the DARK IS RISING series begins with the eleventh birthday of a boy named Will Stanton. Will is a most unusual boy and not one of his eight brothers and sisters nor his parents can truly explain him except to say he is a very old eleven year old. There is something about Will that suggests wisdom and timelessness.
What Will is about to learn about himself is astounding. He is one of the Old Ones, in fact he is the last of the Old Ones to be born and now he has come of age at eleven and the powers that he is capable of wielding will begin to come to him. There are six signs that Will must gather and he has no idea of when or how they will be made visible to him.
It's Christmas Eve and the next twelve days are the time when the Dark forces are at their most powerful and when they stand the greatest chance of breaking the Circle of the Old Ones. If this happens, chaos and confusion will cover the land and the dark will rule.
Luckily for Will he has a mentor, a man named Merriman Lyon. He is the first of the Old Ones and will act as a guardian for Will as the challenges rise toward him time and time again.
This is a story that runs deep inside the reader. As you travel along with Will, you have that feeling that you have experienced the force of what Will confronts in your own life and your own self.
The fear that the Dark might gain the advantage is so real and so powerful. It makes you hold your breath as you watch Will uncover the Sign of Bronze and the Sign of Fire.
You see how easily human beings are caught up in the emotions of the Dark.
Susan Cooper has written a positively brilliant journey filled with adventure and characters you wish you could meet and some you hope never to encounter. She has taken that sixth sense we have about our world and given it form and shape and thought.
Will lives in two worlds and can travel through time.
We all live in two worlds... perhaps it's a combination of our conscious and unconscious minds. But, as she writes, there is "a part of all of us, and of all the things we think and believe, that has nothing to do with yesterday, or today, or tomorrow because it belongs at a different kind of level."
For Investigator, for Champion, this book will be like coming home. At last someone understands and writes with great respect and wisdom about something they have sensed but never been able to define or explain. A gift indeed.
230 pages Ages 9-99 9780689403173
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On the Midwinter Day that is his eleventh birthday, Will Stanton discovers a special gift -- that he is the last of the Old Ones, immortals dedicated to keeping the world from domination by the forces of evil, the Dark. At once, he is plunged into a quest for the six magical Signs that will one day aid the Old Ones in the final battle between the Dark and the Light. And for the twelve days of Christmas, while the Dark is rising, life for Will is full of wonder, terror, and delight.--from the publisher
