Bingo: No Money (borrowed from my dad)
This year, I was only going to review books I’d never read before, but a few months back another Cannonballer reviewed the entire Dark is Rising series and it made me nostalgic for these books, which I adored as a kid. Plus, I’d never read the final book in the series so I thought I might finally get around to it (I also tried to read the first in the series–The Dark is Rising is the second–but couldn’t get into it).
The Dark is Rising opens on the eve of Will Stanton’s 11th birthday, right before Christmas. Will is the youngest in a big family living in the Thames Valley. Weird stuff starts happening to him–the animals at his farm act afraid of him, birds seem to swarm overhead, there are menacing people around–and he soon meets a man named Merriman Lyon, who tells him he is the last of the Old Ones, a group of immortals whose job it is to protect the world from the powers of the Dark. Will’s task is to find one of the Things of Power that help the Light fight off the Dark. The book is the story of his adventures as he searches for the six Signs (the Thing of Power he’s supposed to find), with Merriman as his mentor and guide.
This book is dark and eerie and so fun to read. The midwinter setting and the kind of silence that comes with a blizzard really helps create a mood that is just deliciously creepy. I enjoyed this almost as much as an adult as I always did as a kid, so I was glad I picked it up again.