The Dark Is Rising by Susan CooperScholastic, 1989 (originally Macmillan, 1973)

I liked this book for all the echoes of superstition and tradition and history: the way it’s set in the time from Midwinter’s Eve to Twelfth Night, the idea of the past being so very present, the way that Will and Merry and the Old Ones can travel through time and step outside it.