I read this as part of an annual read along from Dec 20-31 that was promoted on BBC. However after reading it I do not understand the hype and upon asking my UK friends absolutely none of them had ever heard of it.

It is a spooky winter children’s fantasy story following a boy named Will Stanton who is the youngest of 7 kids and on his 11th birthday finds out he is an ‘old one’, a super powerful ancient magical being who is the last hope against defeating The Dark. It has many similarities with and clearly influenced Harry Potter (it predates HP by about 20 years). Both feature 11 year old boys who fight the evil dark and are guided by old men. But unlike Harry Potter, Will doesn’t actually do anything, everything just happens TO him. He also has no friends on his journey and is guided by a series of ancient adults. The main adult being Merriman who is an old all knowing wizard plot device who of course never tells Will any information and always shows up exactly when he means to (similar to Dumbledore and Gandalf). The story follows will as he collects the 6 ‘signs’ (belt buckles) in order to defeat darkness however every time he collected a belt buckle didn’t feel very accomplishing. He was handed everything and shows no initiative or heroic/adventurous behavior. All in all not a very good kids book, let alone annually rereadable.