I bought The Dark is Rising Sequence on a whim, and I'm glad I did. I am one of those countless adults who enjoys The Hobbit, The Chronicles of Narnia, and, to a lesser extent, the Harry Potter series. These books fall in with these, particularly with Narnia and Harry Potter, as far as the reading level goes and the fact that it concerns primarly children as the heros of the story. If you enjoy the forementioned novels, I think it likely you will enjoy The Dark is Rising, though it is not as well plotted as Harry or Narnia (though rather more poetic, particularly where Harry Potter is concerned).Since the first reviewer gave an excellent recounting of the plots, and since it is easy enough to google the stories, I will not go into that. I will talk about the quality of the story instead.I found Cooper to be a good writer, rather poetic, as I said, and capable of creating good characters. I cared what happened to the children. Will wrought my interest and pity. He is given all kinds of power, but loses his childhood. I found myself resenting the lack of grieving he is allowed for his childhood. But I will get to that in a moment. Bran was probably my favorite character, since he is given an interesting personality, a little magic, and childlike qualities all at once. I liked Will too, but was rather uncomfortable when reading him, because, like I said, I resented the responsiblies and lack of compassion 'The Light' (the force for which he is working) give him. The Drew children were most childlike. I don't quite agree with the first reviewer that they are less relatable characters than Will and Bran. Will, in particular, has a whole book in the series devoted completely to him, so, naturally, you learn more about him and the way he thinks than you would learn about Simon, Jane, and Barney. I don't think the Drews were less well written, I just think they suffered from a lack of individual spotlight. Barney, in particular, seems to me very like my little brother was at that age, and considering that the author is an adult female, this is no small accomplishment.I disliked Merriman (think Dumbledore in Harry Potter, but not as likable and not as well done, in my opinion.) I don't think the author meant to make him a target of dislike, and that is why I complain about it. If he had been meant to dislike, he would have been a good character. But, I got the feeling that Ms. Cooper expects the reader to believe he loves in his way while asking hard things, only, I didn't believe that. He is good,not nice or kind, and I understand that. We are told that he feels compassion, but I, at least, didn't believe it. Dumbledore was the same sort of elderly-magician-teacher character , and written in such a way that you knew he loved Harry, even while asking great and terrible things from him. You felt his love, even when Harry didn't understand him. I did not find that I believed Merriman loved at all. He even tells Will at one point, at the age of eleven, that he is not a child anymore. If Cooper had given Will (and the reader) a moment to regret this horrible loss of childhood, I think the story would have been as good as Harry Potter at least, and a little closer in quality to Narnia. As it was, I found myself strongly irritated by Merriman. To be fair, the writer does talk about the fact that the Light (the force of good for which Merriman and Will and the others work) is a absolute good. It does not have humanity or mercy. It does not consider individual needs, but needs as a whole, she says. Well, maybe that should exempt Merriman's behavior, but I was still not satisfied.There were also moments in the plot where Ms. Cooper should have been a little clearer. It was like the bread inside the crust without the crust. The plot was there, you knew it, but it wasn't given boundries all the time. It was fuzzy. There are times when Cooper asks the reader to understand a plot point without explaining it, and I sincerely doubt an average child reader would understand it. The level of reading is not at all challenging for an adult or even a child, but, like I said the plot is sometimes fuzzy; as if the writer were thinking something she forgot to write. I don't know if this was attempted cleverness on her part or oversight, but either way, it bothered me as a reader. I do not suggest that I didn't get her hints, but it was like a sometimes (not always, certainly) poorly-drawn map of a place I already knew. It was through my understanding of fantasy and having read many books in the genre that I understood, not through the writing of the author. A good book cannot rely on the reading of others to understand it, not in this genre, at least.All that being said, I liked it. The plot, when it was there, was good. The characters were good. I wanted to know what happens to them, and whether they end up happy. The writing was good and sometimes poetic in a way that I really enjoyed. It's a good series of stories, and worth the time. Even with the annoyances, I'll read it again, not something I can say for everything I read.