[2] The title refers to the "silver apples of the moon" associated with the land of faerie in W. B. Yeats' poem "The Song of Wandering Aengus".

Jack and his companions take Lucy to a shrine where the demons she is believed to harbor may be cast out, but things go badly wrong.

Critical Reception Deborah L. Thompson and Susan Lehr hailed the book as a "spectacular" sequel to The Sea of Trolls and prophesied that it would "find a dedicated audience despite its length.

[4] Marek Oziewicz found that the Saxon saga "represents one of the most notable recent examples of fantastic dialogue between the past and the present.

While seeing the 8th century world through Jack's eyes, [young readers] can become aware of what choices should be made in the story, relate this knowledge to their own lives, and explore their own systems of beliefs to their outer edges.