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Summary
Summary
"And Where the Midsummer Tree Grows Tall by Pendragon's Sword the Dark Shall Fall."
The Dark is rising in its last and greatest bid to control the world. Six individuals have come together to drive it back for good: Will, the Sign seeker; Bran, the raven boy; Jane, Simon, and Barney, the grail seekers; and Merriman, the wise mentor who unites them all. Together they stand ready to face the Rider and the full force of the Dark.
But the last object of power must first be found. A sword of legend magically forged of pure crystal remains hidden in the Welsh hills. Without it, the Light has no hope against the Dark. Will and his companions must travel through time and space in an epic clash of magical powers that will decide the fate of us all.
Author Notes
Susan Cooper was born in Buckinghamshire, England in May of 1935. She attended Slough Grammar School, and then went on to Somerville College and Oxford. She was the first woman to ever edit the University Magazine, the Cherwell. She graduated from Oxford with an MA in English and went to work for London's The Sunday Times as a reporter on the Atticus Column for Ian Flemming. She evenutally made it to features writer, during which time she wrote her first book, "Mandrake," a science fiction story for adults.
Soon after the publication of "Mandrake," Cooper wrote the children's story "Over Sea, Under Stone" for a publishing house competition. It would later become the first of a five book series she would become famous for. She left England in 1963 to marry an American professor. Once there, she wrote two more books for adults, "Behind the Golden Gate" a study of America, and "Portrait of an Author" the biography of J. B. Priestley. In 1970, Cooper published "Dawn of Fear" an almost entirely autobiographical book about growing up as a child during the war. Even though Cooper wrote "Over Sea, Under Stone" as a entry for a publishing house competittion, she did not know at the time that it would be the first of her most famous copilation, "The Dark is Rising Series." In 1973 she wrote the second in the five book series, entitled "The Dark is Rising," published more than ten years after the first. In1974, Cooper published Greenwitch, book three, and book four, "The Grey King" a year later. "The Grey King" won the Newberry Medal in 1976. "Silver on the Tree" was the fifth and last book published, completing the series in 1977.
After completing the "Dark is Rising" series, Cooper turned to writing for the theater, learning the style from Urjo Kareda at Tarragon Theatres in Toronto. She wrote for Jack Langstaff's "Revels." Her first major play was called "Foxfire," which was written in coolaboration with Hume Cronyn. The play eventually went to Broadway in 1983 and starred Hume Cronyn and Jessica Tandy, who won a Tony for her performance. Cooper then began working on "Seaward," but was interrupted by Jane Fonda, who wanted her to write the screenplay for Harriet Arnow's "The Dollmaker." She wrote the adaptation with Cronyn and won a Humanitas Award for it, while Jane Fonda won the Best Actress Emmy for her role. Cooper also got an Emmy nomination for her adaptation of "Foxfire" for television. "To Dance with the White Dog," a made for tv movie, was the last collaboration of Cooper, Cronyn and Tandy, Tandy having died in '94.
IN the '80's and '90's, Cooper wrote the text for many children's picture books such as, "Jethro and the Jumbie" and "Danny and the Kings." 1993 marked her return to the Children's Book List with "The Boggart" and int's follow up "The Boggart and the Monster" in 1997. In 1996, Cooper published a collection of essays on children's literature entitled, "Dreams and Wishes." Over the course of her career, Cooper has written for newspapers, books for children and adults, screen[plays for television and cinema, and a Broadwat play. Today, she lectures on children's literture and continues to write.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (3)
School Library Journal Review
Gr 5-9-In Cooper's sweeping epic of the struggle between forces of good and evil, the background of Arthurian legend is prominent. When the Dark comes rising, Will Stanton, the youngest of the Old Ones, is guided in his quest to save the world by his mentor Merriman (Merlin), who also involves the three Drew siblings and a strange Welsh boy, Bran. © Copyright 2017. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Horn Book Review
Read by Alex Jennings. Susan Cooper Silver on the TreeRead by Alex Jennings.The battle between the dark and the light comes to an end, and Cooper's magnificent five-part series is finally complete in audio. Narrator Alex Jennings's resonant voice captures with ease the characters involved in the mysterious forces that inhabit this mythical landscape.From HORN BOOK, (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
The three Drew children and their uncle Merry, an Old One from outside of Time; young Will Stanton who learned of his identity as an Old One in The Dark Is Rising; Will's albino friend Bran, really King Arthur's son Pendragon brought forward to be reared in our time; Arthur himself, at the climax; a benign, disappointingly spiritless Taliesen; and all the forces of the Light and the Dark converge in Wales for the final cosmic battle in Cooper's ambitious, five-volume, resolutely High fantasy. First the children and Merry become Six assembled, later to wield the protective Six Signs which Will had gathered in the earlier volume; next Will and Bran must journey to a Lost Land where Bran's crystal sword must be acquired from a world-weary craftsman/King in his remote glass tower; and at last (this final task is announced to cast and reader alike only as the company is madly racing the Riders of the Dark to its location), the forces of Light, with the Six at the center, must pluck a sprig of mistletoe at the moment of its blossoming--for whichever side accomplishes the plucking will thereby command all the powers of the previously uncommitted Old and Wild Magic. To the end Cooper wields her cryptic prophecies, obscure instructions, and arbitrary contingencies, rules, and conditions with the authority of a sleight-of-hand master; and to the end the discrepancy between her grand scheme and the particulars of the story is unbridged, giving a morally and intellectually hollow ring to the whole. Even at the end, when the much-respected Lady wearily pronounces, ""It is done. Our task is accomplished,"" the actual nature and consequences of that accomplishment remain meaninglessly abstract. And though there is welcome relief in Merry's final charge--the battle from here on is up to humans, who will get no more magic help--it does make the purportedly final and crucial battle that has gone before that much harder to credit. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
