Thalia Kids' Book Club: Susan Cooper's The Dark Is Rising sequence

The Newbery Medal winner talks about her series of five thrilling fantasy novels.

Ages 9-12.


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Performance playlist:

Reading
Daniel Gerroll

Conversation
Susan Cooper and Madeline Cohen

Madeline Cohen has been Symphony Space’s Education Director since 1989. She directs the Curriculum Arts Project (CAP) Program, which gives thousands of students insight into the social studies curriculum through interaction with the arts and artists in the classroom, at museums, and at Peter Norton Symphony Space. She co-organizes Symphony Space’s All Write! program for adult literacy students and the What’s the Story? program for high school students, both modeled after Symphony Space’s series Selected Shorts: A Celebration of the Short Story.

Susan Cooper is best known for her acclaimed sequence of fantasy novels known as The Dark Is Rising which includes Over Sea, Under Stone; The Dark Is Rising (1974 Newbery Honor book); Greenwitch; The Grey King (1976 Newbery Award book); and Silver on the Tree. Her novels for young readers also include Seaward and Dawn of Fear. She has written three books for younger children as well: The Silver Cow, The Selkie Girl and Tam Lin, all illustrated by Warwick Hutton. In collaboration with actor Hume Cronyn, she wrote the Broadway play Foxfire and—for Jane Fonda—the television film The Dollmaker, for which they received the Humanitas Prize in 1985. Born in Buckinghamshire, England, Susan Cooper moved to the United States in 1963 and now lives in Massachusetts. Her latest book is Victory, a time-shifting adventure.

Daniel Gerroll’s film credits include Chariots of Fire and Big Business. The recipient of a Theatre World Award and an Outer Critics Circle Award, he has worked on Broadway in plays such as Plenty, Enchanted April, The Homecoming and High Society. His other New York stage work includes roles in The Importance of Being Earnest and The Shaughraun, for which he received an Obie Award. His television work includes appearances in Knots Landing, Seinfeld and Sisters. For the Bay Street Theatre, he has directed plays such as Accomplice, Blithe Spirit, Rough Crossing, S.N. Behrman’s No Time For Comedy and, most recently, the east coast premiere of Darwin in Malibu. He recently appeared in Mira Nair’s film The Namesake, and played the leading role in the world premiere of Damian Lanigan’s Dissonance at the Williamstown Theatre Festival this past summer.