28. Silver on the Tree by Susan Cooper (Children’s Fantasy) 274 p.

I thought about taking a break from The Dark Is Rising sequence and saving this book for a while. Then I thought about how much I wanted to know what happened next, and that idea went out the window.

Silver on the Tree brings Will Stanton together with all his old friends from the previous books, as the Light gathers to do battle against the Dark.

Susan Cooper’s writing kept me glued to the page right to the end, as usual, even though this wasn’t my favourite book in the series. Actually, it was probably my least favourite, although not by much—the quality of these books is very consistent.

The only thing I didn’t like was the way the series dealt with memory. The Old Ones, who are unambiguously the heroes of the story and represent the forces of good in the world, often use their supernatural abilities to alter the memories of ordinary humans.

This seems dodgy to me, especially since mostly it seems to be done out of expedience rather than necessity. I could accept the power to alter memory as one which could be used for good or evil, with only the Old Ones having the wisdom to use it responsibly—except that as far as I can see, they don’t use it responsibly, or seem to acknowledge that morality even comes into the case. Not an important point, but it bothered me a bit while I was reading the series.

On the other hand, I really liked some of the points made about racism in the book. The book was published in 1977, but there’s one particular conversation that still happens today:

“Not much I don’t know about Indians and Pakkies, after all these years. Of course I got nothing against them personally. Very intelligent, well-educated, some of them. Got myself an op from an Indian doctor at the memorial hospital last year—clever little chap, he was.”

Barbara said, in the same polite voice, “I expect even some of your best friends are Indians and Pakistanis.”

Her father gave her a sharp warning glance, but the words went flickering quite over Mr. Moore’s stubbly head.

It’s sad that even thirty years later, that passage is still funny because I’ve heard that attitude so often. That doesn’t make Susan Cooper any less awesome for writing the scene, though!

Pages read: 8,114

Tags: 50 Book Challenge 2008, 888 Challenge, Susan Cooper, The Dark Is Rising, What's in a Name?