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Title: Seaward by Susan Cooper ISBN: 0-689-50275-3 Publisher: Atheneum Books Pub. Date: 01 September, 1983 Format: School & Library Binding Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $16.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.79 (14 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: This is my favourite
Comment: I am twenty-three years old, and I have loved this book since I was in my very early teens.
Susan Cooper is a classic children's author, and her Dark is Rising sequence regularly gets praised as her best, or at least most popular work.
This book, although very different from her previous and following works, blows even the best of that whole series away.
It is the journey of West and Cally, two teens both suffering from grief, through a strange country, where life and death are living beings. All they know is that they must travel to the sea; neither is entirely certain why. This journey allows both teens to come to terms with their own pain, and their different losses.
The landscape is strange and dreamlike; it is known from her comments in essays that Susan Cooper literally uses dreams to inspire scenes in her stories, and this story more than any other seems to me filled with that drifting feeling. The two main characters are well dsrawn, and some of the supporting cast are very memorable. It also makes excellent use of the selkies, a piece of old folklore of which I am particularly fond.
Best of all, Susan Cooper does NOT do here the thing which made Silver on the Tree such a huge disappointment to me; she does not cheat at the end.
(Warning for those who haven't read the book; spoiler ahead)
Where in Silver on the Tree, the characters risk life and limb in the ultimate battle, only to be made to forget all that they have accomplished through the whole Dark is Rising series (thus making the series itself pointless), in Seaward, the characters are made to forget - for a while only , with a promise that they will remember again when they need to. This ending satisfies, where the similar clossing to Silver on the Tree only disappoints.
(spoiler done)
There are some stories which stay in one's mind for one's lifetime. I knew the moment I was done this story that this would be one of those books. It was my favourite when I was younger, and now that I have met more grief of my own, it has become a much deeper part of me. I only wish it were a little better known behind her more popular works.
Rating: 4
Summary: fun but predictable
Comment: As a Dark is Rising fan, I had to read Seaward. I found that it fits the typical fantasy motif of the journey, but that the journey is the only plot that there is in the novel.
The book tells the story of Cally and West who, both having recently lost parents, stumble into a fantasy world where they meet up and brave the journey to the sea where they believe they will find their parents. Along the way, they must face the challenges imposed on them by the Lady Tarnis who wants to imprison them in her land, as well as the natural hardships of the land (desert, mountains, rivers, snow). As they travel they learn how to trust others, know themselves, and possibly fall in love. While the journey is long and enlightening, the end comes abruptly and is resolved quickly. While I was satisfied with the ending, it was a hollow satisfaction.
I liked the characters that I met in the book, but I wish that they had been developed more. While I understand that the depth level was created for younger readers, I wanted the emotions and psychological musings to be developed further. Since there was not much of a plot, the effects of the journey on the characters was the main element of the book and I just think more could have been done with it.
While the book does have its problems, it is still a really fun book. I would recommend it to anyone who enjoys fantasy stories about journeys.
Rating: 5
Summary: I was never the same afterward.
Comment: I read this as a child, and it was one of three books that affected me the most out of all my excessive reading. (One of the others was Diane Duane's Deep Wizardry). It changed me with its beauty and poignancy.
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Title: The Dark Is Rising Sequence: Silver on the Tree/The Grey King/Greenwitch/The Dark Is Rising/Over Sea, Under Stone by Susan Cooper ISBN: 0020425651 Publisher: Aladdin Paperbacks Pub. Date: 01 October, 1993 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: Dawn of Fear by Susan Cooper, Margery Gill ISBN: 0689713274 Publisher: Aladdin Paperbacks Pub. Date: 30 October, 1989 List Price(USD): $4.99 |
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Title: Green Boy by Susan Cooper ISBN: 0689847602 Publisher: Aladdin Paperbacks Pub. Date: 01 September, 2003 List Price(USD): $4.99 |
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Title: King of Shadows (Aladdin Fantasy) by Susan Cooper ISBN: 068984445X Publisher: Aladdin Paperbacks Pub. Date: 15 May, 2001 List Price(USD): $4.99 |
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Title: The Boggart by Susan Cooper ISBN: 0689801734 Publisher: Aladdin Paperbacks Pub. Date: 01 August, 1995 List Price(USD): $4.99 |
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