Over Sea, Under Stone, by Susan Cooper

I've had the five volumes of Susan Cooper's The Dark Is Rising series for many year, but somehow never got round to reading any of them before now. One deterrent was certainly the film The Seeker, which apparently melded aspects of the series into a universally-derided single movie. But back to the first book, Over Sea, Under Stone. I probably would have liked it more if I'd read it when I was a teenager (or before then). As it stands now, it is merely an adequately told children's adventure tale with some tinges of fantasy (Arthurian, to be specific). I gather that the folow-up books are notches above this one in terms of quality.  The second in the series was a Newbery Honor Book, while the fourth won the Newbery Medal. So it will likely be worthwhile to continue reading the series. But the first book is one of those odd books that were standouts in an uncrowded field when first published, but as the quality rose in many so subsequent later books in the genre, it would have been left in the dust. So without the more ambitious later volumes in the series itself, this book wouldn't have the stature it does today.