The Dark is rising!
This is my favorite middle-grade book ever. It takes place around Christmas, so I read it this time of year, but don’t let that stop you from reading it anytime. It’s urban fantasy, with an 11 year old protagonist. (I first read it at that age.) He’s the youngest of nine children, but I promise that’s not why I have so many kids. It was published in and takes place during the early Seventies, so it features delightfully independent children with no mobile phones or video games, tramping about the South of England. Anyway, he learns he’s magical on his eleventh birthday, and a wise old wizard teaches him how to fight a vast evil. All this about 25 years before our Mister Potter, ye ken.
It’s just The Best. And it’s the second book in the series, but reads just fine out of sequence. You won’t regret this one.