Tuesday, March 20, 2007

BOOK: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by CS Lewis

I must be the only person in the world who never read this book as a child. My nine year old recently read it, even he read it before me. It was good, but I'm not rushing out to get the next books in the Chronicles of Narnia; however I will read them eventually. I had a lovely edition, hardcover, large size and illustrated by Pauline Baynes from the library.

It is the grandparent to Harry Potter and JK Rowling certainly got her inspiration from this story. I read this for the Banned Book Challenge, and I'm not sure why this would be a banned book. The Christian religious overtones? Giants and centaurs? Seemed pretty harmless to me. The analogy to Jesus and his crucifiction were certainly obvious, but for a children's book, I liked that. I was able to talk to my son about the parallels and hopefully he could begin to see the kinds of things that great books can do. Great kids book; OK for me.