Susan Cooper Books In Order

The Boggart Books In Publication Order

  1. The Boggart (1993)
  2. The Boggart and the Monster (1997)
  3. The Boggart Fights Back (2018)

The Dark Is Rising Books In Publication Order

  1. Over Sea, Under Stone (1965)
  2. The Dark is Rising (1973)
  3. Greenwitch (1974)
  4. The Grey King (1975)
  5. Silver On The Tree (1977)

Standalone Novels In Publication Order

  1. Dawn of Fear (1970)
  2. Seaward (1983)
  3. King of Shadows (1999)
  4. Green Boy (2002)
  5. The Magician’s Boy (2005)
  6. Victory (2006)
  7. Ghost Hawk (2013)

Picture Books In Publication Order

  1. Jethro and the Jumbie (1979)
  2. The Silver Cow (1983)
  3. The Selkie Girl (1986)
  4. Matthew’s Dragon (1991)
  5. Tam Lin (1991)
  6. Danny and the Kings (1993)
  7. Frog (2002)
  8. The Word Pirates (2019)
  9. The Shortest Day (2019)

Non-Fiction Books In Publication Order

  1. Dreams and Wishes (1996)
  2. The Magic Maker (2011)

Anthologies In Publication Order

  1. Acting Out (2008)
  2. Haunted (2011)

The Boggart Book Covers

The Dark Is Rising Book Covers

Standalone Novels Book Covers

Picture Book Covers

Non-Fiction Book Covers

Anthologies Book Covers

Susan Cooper Books Overview

The Boggart

In a tumbledown castle in the Western Highlands of Scotland lives The Boggart. He is invisible an ancient mischievous spirit, solitary and sly, born of a magic as old as the rocks and the waves. He has lived in Castle Keep for centuries, playing tricks on the owners. But the last Scottish owner has died and left the castle to his great nephew Robert Volnik of Toronto, Canada. The Volnik family including Emily and her nine year old computer genius brother Jessup visit Castle Keep, and when they return to Toronto, they unwittingly take The Boggart with them. The astonishments, delight, and horrors that invade their lives with the arrival of The Boggart fill this swiftly moving story. The collision of modern techology and the Old Magic brings perils nobody could have imagined and, in the end, an amazing and touching solution to the problem of The Boggart who has found himself on the wrong side of the ocean. Sometimes extremely funny, sometimes wildly scary,and always totally absorbing, this remarkable story brilliantly imagined and beautifully written marks the return of the Newbery Award winner Susan Cooper to the field of novels for young readers. An outstanding achievement, The Boggart will work its special magic on all who read it.

The Boggart and the Monster

When the Scottish owner of Castle Keep died, the ancient castle went to his Canadian great nephew, Robert Volnik. There was no way the Volniks could keep the castle, so it was sold to an Edinburgh lawyer, Mr. Maconochie. Two years later, Emily Volnik and her younger brohter Jessup return to the castle for a visit. To their delight, the Boggart, a mischievous shape shifting spirit who has lived in the castle for centures, playing tricks on the owners, is still there, making Mr. Mac coubt his won sanity as strange things happen. At Jessup’s urging, Mr. Mac takes them and Tommy Cameron, a local friend, on a comping trip to Loch Ness, Where a new expedition with advanced underwater equipment is planning another search for the Loch Ness Monster. The boggart comes along, and, on thier first night there, he is entranced to rediscover Nessie, a boggart cousin who has long forgotten how to change shape and remains in the prehistoric monster form he long ago adopted. Beautifully imagined and beautifully written, this is an unforgettable adventure, filled with humor, suspense, and wonderful characters. It is a stunning companion to Susan Cooper’s earlier book, The Boggart.

Over Sea, Under Stone

‘I DID NOT KNOW THAT YOU CHILDREN WOULD BE THE ONES TO FIND IT. OR WHAT DANGER YOU WOULD BE PUTTING YOURSELVES IN.’Throughout time, the forces of good and evil have battled continuously, maintaining the balance. Whenever evil forces grow too powerful, a champion of good is called to drive them back. Now, with evil’s power rising and a champion yet to be found, three siblings find themselves at the center of a mystical war. Jane, Simon, and Barney Drew have discovered an ancient text that reads of a legendary grail lost centuries ago. The grail is an object of great power, buried with a vital secret. As the Drews race against the forces of evil, they must piece together the text’s clues to find the grail and keep its secret safe until a new champion rises.

The Dark is Rising

On the Midwinter Day that is his eleventh birthday, Will Stanton discovers a special gift that he is the last of the Old Ones, immortals dedicated throughout the ages to keeping the world from domination by the forces of evil, the Dark. He is plunged at once into a quest for the six magical Signs that will one day aid the Old Ones in the final battle between the Dark and the Light. Thereafter, for the twelve days of Christmas while The Dark is Rising, life for Will, although outwardly normal, is strangely wonderful as he is drawn through terror and delight. This book is a rare act of creative imagination in which the reader will be equally moved by the warm happy village life Will shares with his large family and the nearly overwhelming danger he encounters, often in other centuries and places, while he seeks the Signs and learns their power. Interweaving ancient Celtic and English traditions with the legends of the Buckinghamshire hills and valleys where she grew up, Susan Cooper has written a superlative dramatic fantasy of the eternal conflict between good and evil out of which all myth is made.

Greenwitch

Read by Alex Jennings
approx. 4.5 hours
3 cassettes

Simon, Jane and Barney, enlisted by their mysterious great uncle, arrive in a small coastal town to help recover a priceless golden grail stolen by the forces of evil, the Dark. They are not a first aware of the strange powers of another boy brought to help, Will Stanton nor of the sinister significance of the Greenwitch, an image of leaves and branches that for centuries has been cast into the sea for good luck in fishing and harvest.
Their search for the grail sets into motion a series of disturbing, sometimes dangerous events that, at their climax, bring forh a gift that, for a time at least, will keep the Dark from rising.

Alex Jennings has a long list of credits in British theatre, television, and film. He has also worked with the BBC Radio Repertory Company.

The Grey King

‘Fire on the Mountain Shall Find the Harp of Gold Played to Wake the Sleepers, Oldest of the Old…
‘ With the final battle between the Light and the Dark soon approaching, Will sets out on a quest to call for aid. Hidden within the Welsh hills is a magical harp that he must use to wake the Sleepers six noble riders who have slept for centuries. But an illness has robbed Will of nearly all his knowledge of the Old Ones, and he is left only with a broken riddle to guide him in his task. As Will travels blindly through the hills, his journey will bring him face to face with the most powerful Lord of the Dark The Grey King. The King holds the harp and Sleepers within his lands, and there has yet to be a force strong enough to tear them from his grasp…

Silver On The Tree

‘And Where the Midsummer Tree Grows Tall by Pendragon’s Sword the Dark Shall Fall.’ The Dark is rising in its last and greatest bid to control the world. Six individuals have come together to drive it back for good: Will, the Sign seeker; Bran, the raven boy; Jane, Simon, and Barney, the grail seekers; and Merriman, the wise mentor who unites them all. Together they stand ready to face the Rider and the full force of the Dark. But the last object of power must first be found. A sword of legend magically forged of pure crystal remains hidden in the Welsh hills. Without it, the Light has no hope against the Dark. Will and his companions must travel through time and space in an epic clash of magical powers that will decide the fate of us all.

Dawn of Fear

Derek and his friends, living outside of London during World War II, regard the frequent air raids with more fascination than fear after all, they can barely remember a time without them. The boys are thrilled when school is canceled for a few days due to a raid, giving them time to work on their secret camp. But when their camp is savagely attacked by a rival gang from the neighborhood, the harsh reality of the violence surrouding them suddenly crashes down upon Derek and his friends and a long night of bombing changes his feelings about the war forever. Includes a reader’s guide.

Seaward

His name is West. Her name is Cally. They speak different languages and come from different countries thousands of miles apart, but they do not know that. What they do know are the tragedies that took their parents, then wrenched the two of them out of reality, into a strange and perilous world through which they must travel together, knowing only that they must reach the sea. Together West and Cally embark upon a strange and sometimes terrifying quest, learning to survive and to love and, at last, the real secret of their journey.

King of Shadows

Nat Field’s short life has been shadowed by loss and horror. His one escape is his talent for acting, and he has been picked by a dazzling international director to perform at Shakespeare’s Globe, London’s amazing new copy of the theater for which William Shakespeare wrote his plays four hundred years ago. Brought from all over the U.S., the members of the American Company of Boys begin to rehearse at the Globe. But strange, eerie echoes of the past begin creeping in. Nat goes to bed mysteriously sick is it the dreadful bubonic plague of the sixteenth century? He wakes up healthy, but he’s no longer in the present, he’s in 1599, acting at the original Globe. And his costar is Shakespeare: no longer a vague historical figure, but a quirky, warm hearted writer/actor whose friendship changes Nat forever. Nat has a new life, blazing with excitement, edged with danger, but why is he here? Is he trapped in Elizabethan London? Will he ever go home? Playing deftly with Time and Destiny as she did in her classic fantasy sequence The Dark Is Rising, Susan Cooper tells a vivid, fascinating and ultimately very moving story of the painful business of growing up, against a background of the timeless, glowing magic of the theater.

Green Boy

Long Pond Cay, in the Bahamas, is a magical white sand island, and twelve year old Trey and silent seven year old Lou love to visit its loneliness. But one day the magic becomes nightmare, and suddenly they are in another world, strident, polluted, and overcrowded where little Lou is hailed not as a mute Bahamian boy but as the mythic hero Lugh, born to bring terrible destruction and renewal. Carried betwween worlds in a zigzag adenture of mounting tension and danger, the children risk their lives not only to save the alien world, but to ward off a new, parallel threat to their beloved Long Pond Cay. The forces of myth and nature explode together in an amazing climax. This is a deeply moving fantasy told by an internationally acclaimed Newbery Award wining writer, who knows and loves the Bahamian islands. Its vision of a spoiled world ominously like our own will haunt the reader for long time to come.

The Magician’s Boy

A Boy works for a Magician.

The Boy polishes the Magician’s wands, and catches the rabbits that the Magician pulls out of hats. But the Boy’s favorite job is operating the puppets for the Magician’s famous puppet play, ‘Saint George and the Dragon’ until one terrible day when, in the middle of a performance, the Boy can’t find the Saint George puppet. The Magician is furious. He points a long magical finger at the Boy, and poof! the Boy is suddenly in the strange Land of Story, where he must find Saint George.

The Boy’s hunt for Saint George is full of adventures with oddly familiar people. He saves the Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe from losing her children; he spoils the wolf’s plan to eat Little Red Riding Hood; and he narrowly escapes being eaten by the Giant at the top of Jack’s beanstalk. But the Boy’s last adventure is the most amazing of all and changes his life forever. No child who reads this delightful tale by master storyteller Susan Cooper is likely to forget it.

Victory

Two Children, Two Struggles, One Battle…
One child is Sam Robbins, a powder monkey aboard HMS Victory, the ship in which Vice Admiral Lord Nelson will die a hero’s death at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805. The other is Molly Jennings, an English girl transplanted from London to the United States in 2006, fighting a battle of her own against loss and loneliness. This extraordinary time shifting adventure tells the interwoven stories of Sam and Molly, linked by a mystery. Sam is a farm boy, kidnapped at eleven years old by the ‘press gang’ to serve in the Royal Navy. At first terrified and seasick, Sam is transformed gradually into a sailor. In the rowdy, dangerous world of a hundred gun warship enduring the Napoleonic Wars, he meets both cruelty and kindness, and survives a fearsome battle whose echoes reach through the years to involve Molly as well. Like Sam, Molly has lost her childhood but will find her future, with help from a very unexpected source. Separate yet together, Sam Robbins and Molly Jennings struggle through fear and excitement to a final ordeal that terrifyingly tests their courage. And the moving climax of the book shows two lives joined forever by the touch of Nelson, one of the greatest sailors of all time.

The Silver Cow

From Wales comes this tale of young Huw, whose lilting harp music enchants Tylwyth Teg, the magic people of Bearded Lake.

From the depths of the black lake comes the gift of a beautiful silver cow; and the cow is magic, for its milk is three times as rich as the milk of an ordinary cow, and she gives three times as much.

Huw’s father is a selfish and greedy man, and his wealth makes him greedier than ever. Huw tries to make his father see the magic, but he scoffs at Tylwyth Teg…
until they seek their revenge.

Told with a rhythm that evokes the Welsh language, Susan Cooper has brought new life to this ancient tale. Warwick Hutton’s evocative illustrations capture the magic of this fateful story.

The Selkie Girl

‘The Celtic legend of a seal maiden, who is captured and wed by a mortal young man, is related again by an author who remains faithful to the spirit and magic of the story but gives it a fullness and inevitability that only a true storyteller can evoke…
The watercolors…
blend the homely reality of life on a small, seabound craft with a controlled but intense sense of drama.’ The Horn Book.

Matthew’s Dragon

Matthew can’t believe his eyes! Coming from the pages of his favorite book is a mysterious green glow. Suddenly, a tiny green dragon appears and with a touch of his magic golden claw, Matthew is small as he is! Off they go, battling the monstrous cat next door and munching on giant tomatoes. And as dawn approaches, Matthew takes flight on the wings of his new best friend. Flying high above the clouds with hundreds of other beautiful dragons, it’s an adventure he’ll never forget.

Tam Lin

A retelling of the old Scottish ballad in which a young girl rescues the human knight Tam Lin from his bondage to the Elfin Queen.

Danny and the Kings

Although Danny’s little Christmas tree is run over by a truck, smashing Danny’s dream of bringing a tree to his younger brother in their poor trailer home, the truck driver turns out to be an extraordinary person.

Frog

Little Joe isn’t afraid of the water, but he can’t swim. He only splashes around. This makes him sad because everyone in his family swims easily and well and Joe longs to. One day, a very small frog from a nearby pond hops over and right into the pool. Joe watches him swim back and forth, kicking hard with his strong back legs. Joe’s brother and sister try to grab Frog or chase him out. Joe’s dad brings a net to scoop up Frog. Even Joe’s mother joins in. Joe just watches. But when his family grows tired of the chase, Joe manages to rescue the tiny frog. Then he looks at the pool. If he imitates the frog, will he finally be able to swim? This charming story, simply told by a much loved author, will encourage small children who long to swim, and delight all those who already can. Jane Browne’s full color paintings catch perfectly the small drama of Joe and Frog’s adventure.

Dreams and Wishes

An informative book for young writers interested in the pursuit of writing and the writing process presents a collection of Susan Cooper’s inspirational speeches, spanning from 1976 to the present, on the theme of creative writing for children.

Acting Out

Six masterful children’s authors have become master playwrights in this collection of one act plays that might just make you want to ACT OUT! In The Raven, Sharon Creech spoofs a publishing office while Susan Cooper shows the environment fighting back against overdevelopment in The Dollop. Patricia MacLachlan puts a twist on detention in The Bad Room and Katherine Paterson gives us a new twist on a classic fairy tale in The Billionaire and the Bird. Richard Peck’s Effigy in the Outhouse is the story of schoolboys doing their best to trick a spooky substitute while Avi’s Not Seeing Is Believing has words playing tricks on everyone. With a star studded lineup of writers there’s a stage full of drama, comedy, and great storytelling waiting behind these curtains! Newbery Medal winning and beloved authors Avi, Susan Cooper, Sharon Creech, Patricia MacLachlan, Katherine Paterson, and Richard Peck have come together and written six original one act plays to be read, shared, and acted out by the audience they know best. The playwrights could write about anything and anyone they wanted, but one thing would need to tie the stories all together. Each author had to choose one word and share it with the group. These six words then had to be written into each of the plays. The words they chose were ‘dollop,’ ‘hoodwink,’ ‘Justin,’ ‘knuckleball,’ ‘panhandle,’ and ‘raven.’ To find out the funny, odd, and creative ways they were used…
Well, you’ll have to read for yourself.

Related Authors

Leave a Comment