A holiday by the sea, a strange house, a mysterious yacht. The three Drew children are in for the adventure of a lifetime!
Soon they are on a treasure hunt, risking their lives to help find a mysterious missing object. But villains are on their trail! Can they follow the clues and solve the puzzle before the bad guys catch up?
It’s Over Sea, Under Stone, by Susan Cooper!
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Barnaby, Jane and Simon Drew are all set for four exciting weeks of holiday. Their Great Uncle Merry has invited them to spend time with him, in Cornwall, in a strange twisty home called Grey House.
Any time they can spend with Great Uncle Merry–or Gumerry, as Barney named him when he was a toddler–is to be celebrated. Gumerry is tall, with wild white hair and deep-set eyes, no one knows how old he really is, but anyone spending time with him starts to feel he’s ancient–as old as the hills, or the sea, or the sky. Always, wherever he was, unusual and interesting things happened around him. Who wouldn’t want to spend time in his presence? It’s sure to be an amazing holiday!
Before they even enter Grey House, the children stop to look out at the ocean. There’s a strange wildness in the breeze; the scent of seaweed, salt and excitement. Barnaby notices a fast moving white yacht in the harbor. Barnaby and Simon imagine how thrilling it would be to go onboard. Only Jane, who isn’t fond of the open sea, notices that Gumerry seems to be startled. Not only startled, but surprised, alarmed and unsettled at the sight of the white yacht.
Down in the village, Jane is nearly run over by a rude boy on a bicycle. A wizened old fisherman helps Simon and Barnaby get Jane to her feet and patches her up. Kindly Mr. Penhallow tells them a little about the town, and confirms that Gumerry is well known in the village. Barnaby chats with him and finds out all about the fishing schedule in the village. He also tells his brother and sister than Mr. Penhallow said that rain was coming. Looking at the beautiful blue sky above, Simon says that it doesn’t seem likely.
But the next day, not only is it raining, but there’s thunder as well. The first full day of the holidays, and they’re stuck in the gloomy old house. Bored, Barnaby convinces Simon and Jane to go exploring in the house. There are rooms they haven’t seen, and the house is so big, that there have to be things to find! They do find some interesting rooms and strange corridors. But they start thinking about the layout of the house and walls; curious enough to start thinking about the logistics, they start measuring space, and realize that there should be a room behind the wall in Simon and Barnaby’s bedroom. Moving a heavy cupboard, they find a dusty door. Forcing it open, they push past cobwebs and enter the tiny room… which isn’t a room at all, but a staircase, ascending into dusty darkness…
Simon, Jane and Barnaby’s discovery is the key to finding a grail, a source of power to fight the forces of evil known as the Dark. It sends them on a dangerous quest that entraps them in the eternal battle between the forces of the Light and the Dark.
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Over Sea, Under Stone was published in 1965. Ten years later, Susan Cooper wrote four highly acclaimed sequels, starting with The Dark is Rising. Barnaby, Jane and Simon appear in three of the other books–Greenwitch, The Grey King, and The Silver on the Tree. Since the four were published by a different publisher, Over Sea, Under Stone didn’t really get credit as the first book in the series until 1979.
I loved this book as a kid! I did not guess who Gumerry was until near the end, but I did guess before the big reveal. The mystery is based around the coast of Cornwall, with caves and fishing villages and cliffs, as well as beautiful vistas. Readers will want to visit Cornwall after finishing the book! The clues are complicated, but there are enough clues in the text to help figure it out with the kids.
While the rest of The Dark is Rising Sequence are high fantasy, Over Sea, Under Stone is more of a mystery. It does have elements of fantasy, and Great Uncle Merry–Merriman Lyon–is definitely fantastical. Because it’s a mystery, it’s more focused on the clues and the treasure, and can be accessible to slightly younger readers. It would be best for fourth through seventh grade readers. (The rest of the Dark is Rising Sequence is probably fifth through tenth grades, increasing slightly with each book.)
Some read alikes are The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman, The Sea of Trolls by Nancy Farmer, Dogsbody by Diana Wynne Jones and Yesterday’s Magic by Pamela Service.
So grab your Guide to Cornwall and try Over Sea, Under Stone…and enjoy!
Happy Reading!
::kell::
Hero’s not happy with her family’s new home. The house is okay, and she Maryland seems like a good place to live. But…another new school, new town, new life? Ugh. Even though the Netherfield family moves often, there’s something different about this move. Maybe it’s because now that she’s going into sixth grade, all the baby stuff that she’s collected since she was five just doesn’t seem to fit her anymore. She doesn’t even want to unpack her stuff…she just shoves it in a box under her new bed.
Sophie Hatter lives in the land of Ingary. She is resigned to her life being boring; after all, she is the eldest of three sisters. In a land where seven-league boots exist, and magic is used regularly, being the eldest of three means that she will fail at whatever she tries. And not only fail, but fail the most spectacularly. Her sisters Lettie and Martha aren’t as willing to take this as fate, but Sophie just knows that she is destined for a boring life as a hat maker.
But all is not well in Ingary. The Witch of the Waste has shown up and threatened the king’s daughter. The king sent Suliman, the royal wizard, to deal with the Witch. But Wizard Suliman has vanished, and the Witch is still at large. When a large black castle appears in the hills around the town of Market Chipping, with four spires billowing thick dark smoke, everyone is sure that the Witch has decided to terrorize the countryside as she did fifty years ago. When the castle starts moving around the hills, most people are sure of it, and keep to themselves.
Stuck in the hat shop, Sophie finds she is quite adept at making hats. And if she talks to them while she’s creating, well who’s to know? She’s mostly alone in the shop, missing her sisters and listening to the gossip of customers. Gossip about the King’s brother, Prince Justin, who has also disappeared, and about the Witch, and about the dark castle, which doesn’t belong to the Witch at all, but to a wizard–the Wizard Howl, who has no heart and who, it is said, steals those of young girls.
Although she tries to avoid customers, Sophie finds herself in the middle of a boom in business. Her hats are all the rage, and everyone in town is talking about how beautiful they make their wearers. But after an eye-opening meeting with her sister, Sophie starts to feel like the hat shop might not be her destiny. After a chat with her stepmother, she is almost sure of it. Unsettled and angry, Sophie becomes more plain-spoken and forthright in her dealings with customers. That ends one day, when a glamorous woman comes into the shop, looking for a magical hat. Not realizing who she is, Sophie is honest to the point of rudeness with the woman, who turns out to be the Witch of the Waste.
She leaves the hat shop and heads out over the hills, where she runs into the moving castle of Wizard Howl. At the end of her strength (and her temper) Sophie breaks into the castle and makes herself at home.
Howl’s Moving Castle is also a wonderful audio book; eight hours and thirty-four minutes long. The narrator, Jenny Sterlin, does a wonderful job of bringing the story to life. She’s also quite adept at the voices of each character. Even though I’ve read the book multiple times, listening to it was also enjoyable.
The audio recording of Flunked was quite charming. (heh!) Flunked is a first-person story, so everything is relayed through Gilly. The narrator has the perfect voice for Gilly…young, a little bit inquisitive, scrappy…and reluctantly impressed with her new surroundings. Her voice for other characters, seen through Gilly’s eyes, are varied by accent, pacing and attitude. Letters from Gilly to her family, notes from teachers and The Happily Ever After Scrolls–updates on the action at the school, as reported by a nosy reporter for FairyWeb- enhance the story and give an outside view of the action.
Richard has always been best friends with his cousin Malley. She’s kind of a wild child, but she always tells Richard what she’s up to. When he returns from the beach where he was supposed to meet Malley, her parents tell him that she’s left for school and has only left him a voicemail message, Richard is suspicious. Everyone knew that Malley was extremely unhappy about being shipped off to boarding school in New Hampshire. So Richard starts to snoop around, and realizes that Malley hasn’t gone to school, she’s run off to meet someone she met online.
I really enjoyed the narrator of Skink No Surrender. He was able to change his voice for every character, and keep you right on the edge of your seat. Skink especially is a character, and his booming voice is fun to hear. This audio has everything I look for in something to keep me listening.
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