The second (and best) in the Dark is Rising sequence! - Rated 
What a brilliant fantasy. Although this is the second of Susan Cooper's The Dark is Rising sequence (and there are 5 books in total), it could easily be read as a stand alone book too.
On Midwinter's Eve, young Will Stanton, the youngest of a large family in the Thames Valley and seventh son of a seventh son, is about to turn eleven. But something strange is in the air. The atmosphere feels odd, the rabbits shrink away from him when he goes to give them their feed, the radio shrieks with interference when Will walks past it and it feels like snow is on its way...
Events only get more strange during the course of the night and in the morning Will awakes early on his birthday to find a very different world looking back at him through the window; a forested world - no roofs, no fields, just trees, covered in a thick blanket of deep snow. Will was 'crystal-clear awake, in a Midwinter Day that had been waiting for him to wake into it since the day he had been born, and, he somewhow knew, for centuries before that. Tomorrow will be beyond imagining...'.
Will soon discovers that he has been given the power of the Old Ones; a power of Light and goodness, and that with some help from the mysterious Merriman, the shining white horse and other Old powers, he must embark upon a mission against the frightening and evil magic of the Dark. Will is no ordinary eleven-year-old boy, but a boy who has been imbued with centuries-old knowledge and power and he alone, as the Sign-Seeker, must find a join together the Six great signs of the Light to defeat the Dark in its grasp for power.
A wonderful, fast-paced and captivating book. If you are interested in the series then start with Book One, 'Over Sea Under Stone', although it doesn't really link in with this one until you get to Book Three, 'Greenwitch'. A classic series for all ages.
Don't be put off by the film - Rated
As a child, 'Over Sea, Under Stone' was by far my favourite book and years later in my twenties, I went looking for it for nostagic reasons. I was pleasantly suprised to find that there were 4 other books in the series, of which the Dark is Rising is the second.
Even as an adult, I love 'The Dark is Rising', which is the pick of the series for me.
As the cold winter nights draw in, I often get this one out and re-live it.
I find myself in each scene that Susan Cooper weaves - decorating the Christmas tree with a big bustling family around, walking down the lane with Will Stanton on the winter morning he comes of age, as a blanket of newly fallen snow lays all around. I can even see the light from a working Smithy up ahead, which wasn't there before - the scene is from the past but the people seem to be from the present...
But danger is never far away, should you start feeling too cosy. As a child I used to have to leave the snug warmth of the fireside and go out into the cold, pitch black, wild, wintry night to get more coal for the fire. It was kept in an unlit shed some distance away from the house and it was a bit scary until the warm glow of the house was back in sight.
This is how the book feels.
The large Stanton family are the normalising, comforting factor in young Will's life but even they are slowly being dragged into the clutches of the Dark unless Will can find the 6 signs that he was born to do before the power of the Dark reaches it's peak (which I think is 12 days after Christmas)
Unfortunately the film, in addition to forgetting some of the main characters, forgetting that the Stantons are BRITISH and having a hammy ending, rips out the entire soul of the book by simply concentrating on "the quest", rather than the characters (who are mis-cast in the main).
So in summary, don't be put off by the film. I can't give a higher recommendation to get this book for anyone aged 10 onwards.
Not good for reading aloud - Rated 
I am sorry to confess that I really didn't like this book. Reading all the enthusiastic reviews, I am clearly out-numbered but if I explain why I didn't like it then maybe you can decide whether your mind works like mine or like the books' admirers.
Perhaps the difference is that I read the book aloud and I have the impression most of the reviewers read it alone as children. When you read a book aloud you are very conscious of the quality of the prose and especially the dialogue. That, I believe, is the weakness in Susan Cooper's books.
The story is nicely crafted and it is easy to identify with the brave and occasionally foolish children who are the heroes. But I found the prose excruciating. It is difficult to explain what is wrong but I found myself skipping practically every other sentence in order to make it readable. Try reading a page from the Dark is Rising and then a page from Jonathan Stroud's superb "Amulet of Samarkand" and you will know what I am talking about.
I find it difficult to understand why better editing wasn't applied as it would not be difficult to improve Susan Cooper's writing. The answer may be that the book was written a generation ago when people used typewriters and standards were different. Children's books tended to be slower with a dumbed down version of adult prose that sounds pedestrian compared with the lively artistic style of some modern children's writers. Try digging out your old copy of the first of Enid Blyton's adventure stories (Famous 5 I think) and you will be amazed at the uninspiring description of the family getting ready to go on holiday, including getting dressed and having breakfast, which goes on for about 50 pages.
I suspect a lot of the support for this book is nostalgic. If you read it as a child and loved it, go ahead and get it again. If it is new to you, please have a look at a copy in a shop before you buy it in case you find you agree with me about the writing. There is so much excellent children's fiction around, it's a shame to make a mistake.
Beyond your average fairy tale - Rated
"The Dark is Rising" goes beyond
Your average fairy tale
Completely different from the first
It makes that one quite pale Over sea yet under stone
The first book was a treasure
But this one's cut of different cloth
For older children's pleasure The seventh of a seventh son
Young Will's a special child
When he gets to ten plus one
His life gets really wild Keeper of six mighty signs
Part of the Things of Power
Will's an Old One, he's the last
He stands when mortals cower Iron, Bronze, Wood and Stone
In circles cut in four
Add fire and water to make six
You couldn't ask for more The Dark rises, the Walker walks
Black Rider's on the loose
Can the Lord of Light and the Old Ones
defeat and cook his goose? With ancient books and simple rhymes
And magic, old, and wild
This gripping tale of Light and Dark
Will entertain your child Amanda Richards
2nd volume of THE DARK IS RISING Sequence - Rated
Only the last book of the series includes all six of its main characters. This book introduces the fifth of the six, Will Stanton, to Merriman; the Drews from OVER SEA, UNDER STONE don't return until GREENWITCH, nor do the consequences of the events of their first quest begin coming home to roost until then. Like every book of this series, THE DARK IS RISING is a stand-alone work as well as part of the greater story, and opens in such a way that the viewpoint character - however much knowledge he may possess when fully conscious of his role in the ongoing conflict - provides an "everyman" viewpoint, that at once serves to illustrate the contrast between the surface of present day reality and the magical depths of the ancient war between the Light and the Dark, and to bring the reader up to speed with the story so far.
Will, like the Drews, is very young and at first completely ignorant of the great struggle between the Light and the Dark, though his position in that ancient warfare and the quest he must achieve in this story are quite different from theirs. On the face of things, he is even less connected with the magical world than they, as the youngest child of a large Buckinghamshire family without any arcane scholars in the family tree. But on the Midwinter's Eve on which this story opens, Will notices that strange things are beginning to happen around him: radios give off huge bursts of static when he passes by, and animals behave unusually. Worst of all, when he and his brother witness a bizarre attack by birds on a strange tramp, Will finds that his brother's memory of the incident has been completely wiped away almost as soon as it happened.
Only the next day - Will's eleventh birthday, Midwinter Day - does Will begin to learn of the burden he must bear for the rest of his life, when he wakes to a silent house caught out of present time into a century when the great royal forest of Anderida covered the land, and he meets for the first time Merriman, the eldest of the Old Ones - ageless, as much a creature of magic as a man, committed utterly to the ancient conflict between the Light and the Dark.
"It is a burden. Make no mistake about that. Any great gift or power or talent is a burden, and this more than any, and you will often long to be free of it. But there is nothing to be done. If you were born with the gift, then you must serve it, and nothing in this world or out of it may stand in the way of that service, because that is why you were born and that is the law."
For on this his eleventh birthday, Will has come into his full power as the youngest of the Old Ones, and until he has been given the gift of Gramarye - the learning needed to control his power - and achieved his first quest, the forces of the Dark, now at the Midwinter peak of their power, will exert themselves to the full to prevent Will from taking his place in the circle of the Old Ones who protect the world from the great lords of the Dark and joining the circle of the six great Signs of Power, hidden and scattered until the circle of the Old Ones should be complete.
The tone of this book distinctly differs from that of OVER SEA, UNDER STONE once the story is well under way, because Will's responsibilities mean that he is eventually far more intimately aware of the war between Light and Dark than ordinary people like the Drews would ever normally be. Will isn't inhumanly dedicated, either - he learns several sharp lessons through bitter experience of what can happen if he uses his power lightly, or if a mortal is placed under more strain than he or she can bear, through trust by the Light, temptation by the Dark, or outright attack. In the process, we learn of some of the heartbreak that has shaped Merriman's life through the centuries.
THE DARK IS RISING, more than any of the other books until SILVER ON THE TREE, shows us the terrible cold strength of the Dark, and their subtlety. The much longed-for heavy snowfall that greeted Will as the first of his birthday gifts turns into a crisis as the snow keeps falling, bringing down powerlines, cutting off ordinary communication and transportation, putting the Old Ones under stress as those they care for are endangered. At the same time, we see the cheerful pluck of the villagers of Will's hometown pulling together under stress, as well as the crowded Christmas cheer at the Stantons' household - homely mortal warmth as well as otherworldly delights such as riding a horse with magical ease, passing through a Victorian Christmas party, and learning to wield magic.
It's made very clear that despite his powers, Will still has the tastes and outlook of an ordinary kid from a large loving family, and takes great trouble to protect his private life from the effects of his magical role. Although he eventually has more than mortal knowledge, Will's viewpoint is still close enough to that of an ordinary person that he can act effectively as intermediary for the reader.
I recommend the unabridged audio edition read by Alex Jennings; in addition using his voice and command of accents well to differentiate the characters, he remains in character without ever making winking asides to the listener, despite the occasional straight-faced immature behaviour of some of the younger Stantons.
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