I received this book as a gift from my book-giving grandmother when I was maybe 10 or 11. This cover – the cover of the edition I received which is not the current cover – confused me and I put off reading it for a long time.¹ When I did finally did read it, I loved it. But somehow I didn’t realize that it was part of a series until Mimi gave me the book right before this one. And then I got ahold of the rest of the series and devoured them.

The book starts in the middle of the story – with the siblings, Simon, Jane, and Barney, reading an article about how a grail has been stolen from a museum. They have a proprietary feeling about the grail because they were the ones who found it during an adventure the previous summer – and now it’s gone as if it never existed, and their contribution to history seems to mean nothing. They are cheered from their gloom when, from out of nowhere, their “Great Uncle”² Merry appears. Although old – timeless, really – he’s a bit of a mysterious character, disappearing and reappearing in their lives, often having just completed some kind of archaeological adventure. When Merry appears, the children know they’re going to get to do something important. Merry invites them to join him in Cornwall – where they found the grail – for spring break.

On this vacation, they find themselves thrown together with another kid their age – Will – who they are suspicious of, at first.³ Later they come to realize that there’s something about Will – something timeless and mysterious, very much like Great Uncle Merry – and that Will and Merry are involved in something bigger than just finding the grail and returning it to the museum.

Although the others play important roles in this quest, this is really Jane’s book. She’s the one who suggests being nice to Will. She’s the one who – by virtue of her gender – is allowed to attend the traditional making of the Greenwitch, a sort of cylindrical figure woven by the village women of hazel, rowan and hawthorn by firelight, weighted down with rocks, and cast off the headland into the ocean, as a sacrifice to Tethys, the ocean goddess, who holds the lives of the local fishermen in her elemental hands. The village girls giggle and touch the Greenwitch before it’s cast off, wishing for handsome young husbands. Jane, encouraged to make a participate, debates whether to wish to get the grail back but, overcome by a feeling of sadness that the Greenwitch causes in her, wishes instead that it could be happy. This wish becomes pivotal when the book turns dark later, and Will and Merry have to appease the wild magic of the sea.

Although I resisted it because of the cover, this was the right entry book for me to this series because of Jane’s pivotal role. In the book right before this, she’s a bit of a worry wart, suggesting that Barney is too young to participate in their more dangerous adventures. And the first and fourth books of the series focus on Will. The last book in the series, where Jane again plays a somewhat larger role, is not a book that can stand alone like the others do.

I was so excited, a few years ago, to discover that they had made a movie of the first book in the series. At least I thought it was based on the books but then I watched the first few minutes and got confused – it was completely different. Will, 11 in the books, is a teenager here and the movie opened with him being chased through a shopping mall, falsely accused of stealing a watch. WTF? Then the book returns to Will’s home and starts to introduce other characters, things started to seem familiar, and then it took a left turn and went all Hollywood again. I turned it off without finishing it. It’s a rotten movie, muddy and confused, with a 17% rotten tomatoes score. It doesn’t stand on its own as a movie, and doesn’t represent the book. I don’t know why film producers feel like they have to improve books – okay, cut out Tom Bombadil, give Arwen something to actually do, but don’t cut the part where the hobbits return home, for crying out loud – that’s the whole point of the thing. And what Jackson did with The Hobbit is just criminal. Hmmm… I’ve gotten a little off topic here…⁴

I like these books because the children have a pivotal role in improving a world that it is at risk. Although Merriman is there to instruct them and provide context from time to time, he often says, “This is your adventure” and steps aside while they battle the dark forces – which usually take the form of adults. Even Will, who turns out to have a deeper, more timeless nature, is a child, still learning, still making mistakes. Some of his mistakes can be remedied; some break things forever. And sometimes damage is done by adults, well-meaning perhaps, looking out for the kids’ safety – or selfish, wanting what they want, regardless of the harm that causes. In a later book, a child sees his dog, a companion in his loneliness, killed before him, a move calculated by The Dark to isolate the child, sour him, turn him against people. And remove him from his role in the quest that he and Will are on. The child’s sense of loss, of unfairness, resonated with me as a child. As did Will’s sense of helplessness – for all he is learning of his powers, he’s unable to do anything to alleviate his new friend’s grief.

I recommend these books to parents who are looking for something for their children to read, or to read with their children. They’re mysterious and magical, a little spooky sometimes, very much the feeling of The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe⁵, but with a more subtle touch and more modern, taking place in what seems like the early 1970’s. Which I guess kids today wouldn’t see as modern, but it’s certainly a different era than the late 1930’s. Who knows, in history it will all wash together as the 20th Century, the way we think of the 17th Century or the 18th Century…

1. The current U.S. Collier cover is not much better. There’s a Puffin color which is just as representative of the contents of the book which is beautiful and probably appeals to children more. But now I think this cover is beautiful. ↩︎
2. Courtesy uncle, not really an uncle. ↩︎
3. “How can we find out how to get the grail back with some strange kid hanging around?” Barney asks. ↩︎
4. Continuing my rant in the footnotes because I just can’t let this go. There’s a lovely BBC production of A Child’s Christmas in Wales that you should watch sometime before Hollywood gets ahold of it and makes it about teenagers and gunfights over drugs. ↩︎
5. Now there’s a book I haven’t thought about in a long time. My only problem with that book, which I thoroughly enjoyed as a child, is that it’s part of a series that just became a slog to get through. Kind of like Golden Compass, which I found boring and confusing. ↩︎