A review by bluestjuice
Greenwitch by Susan Cooper

3.0

Initially I did not know what to make of this - the third book in the series is where the disparate threads of the first two books join up, with all the major characters (that is, Will Stanton and the Pevensie Drew children) meeting and interacting for the first time. I found this weirdly disorienting, as the point of view takes us out of Will's head for the most part, making him suddenly a much more distant, collected, and capable Old One than he was shown during The Dark Is Rising. I was a bit disappointed that the initial tension and mistrust between the Drew boys and Will morphed indistinctly into a sort of mutual respect, rather than culminating in some sort of actual confrontation. The difference in the way Merriman treats Will vs. the other children is obvious, and perhaps with good reason, but it's so striking that it's not possible for the children not to realize they're being infantilized a bit, which seems rather unfair considering they do quite a lot of real work for the various quests, despite not being Old Ones themselves.

Anyway, my overall enjoyment of this was good - the greenwitch was regional and mythic but also mysterious, and it had a flavor of originality that I found sorely lacking in the second book, so it was a pleasant improvement.