Revisiting CoN
Posted: May 16th, 2008, 3:48 pmI haven't posted for a long time, but had to come back and write about tthe awesome experience I've had recently of rereading the Narnia books. My son Daniel (age 8) and I started with Prince Caspian sometime in March (Don't worry... we'd already read LWW some time ago; we wanted to read PC before the movie, which we will see after school today). When the LWW movie came out, he enjoyed it, but was not yet a real fan of reading fiction (that was his "I only want to read my science encyclopedia and my atlas" phase), so we didn't keep reading after finishing the first book. Now, though, the child seems to live and thrive on a steady diet of fantasy.
Reading CoN again was made all the more special because I was reading it with my son. I remember reading LWW for the first time with my daughter, when she was quite young, and the look of wonder in her eyes throughout. But she learnt to read well by herself before we managed to finish the series, and she insisted on reading most of the books on her own. This time, she listened in on a couple of reading sessions, but preferred to snag the books as we finished them and reread them herself.
Daniel can read very well, but he was happy to listen to Mama read CoN to him. Well... he he did insist on taking The Horse and His Boy and The Magician's Nephew to school with him and reading them himself during SQUIRT (Sustained Quiet Independent Reading Time), but I did get to read all the others out loud, and I could not help thinking as I read how truly gifted Lewis was, how amazing his imagination was and his ability with words, his ability for taking complex ideas and presenting them so that a child can understand them.
My favourite book of the series is still The Last Battle. Daniel wowed me as I was reading the part where the characters discover that the world within Aslan's country was the real Narnia, deeper and truer and more wonderful than they had experienced in the Narnia outside the stable. Daniel listened to me with an expression almost of longing on his face, and then suddenly blurted out. "Mama... the other Narnia was a 'foretaste of the feast to come.'" Turns out, when I thought he was day-dreaming through church service, he's been listening carefully, and he's seeing on his own the connections between the books and our faith!
I'm grateful that my youngest daughter was not quite ready to join us for these nightly readings. That means I will have a chance in a year or two to pull out the books again, get her to snuggle down with me before bed, and read them all again!
It was a little bittersweet, turning the last page of The Last Battle with Daniel. At least we had The Hobbit to move on to! Daniel is already making plans after TH for us to move on to LotR, and then to read CoN again. "Mom, these are the best books in the world!" he told me, sometime in the middle of Silver Chair. 25 years and many, many books after my first introduction to CoN, I am still inclined to agree.
Reading CoN again was made all the more special because I was reading it with my son. I remember reading LWW for the first time with my daughter, when she was quite young, and the look of wonder in her eyes throughout. But she learnt to read well by herself before we managed to finish the series, and she insisted on reading most of the books on her own. This time, she listened in on a couple of reading sessions, but preferred to snag the books as we finished them and reread them herself.
Daniel can read very well, but he was happy to listen to Mama read CoN to him. Well... he he did insist on taking The Horse and His Boy and The Magician's Nephew to school with him and reading them himself during SQUIRT (Sustained Quiet Independent Reading Time), but I did get to read all the others out loud, and I could not help thinking as I read how truly gifted Lewis was, how amazing his imagination was and his ability with words, his ability for taking complex ideas and presenting them so that a child can understand them.
My favourite book of the series is still The Last Battle. Daniel wowed me as I was reading the part where the characters discover that the world within Aslan's country was the real Narnia, deeper and truer and more wonderful than they had experienced in the Narnia outside the stable. Daniel listened to me with an expression almost of longing on his face, and then suddenly blurted out. "Mama... the other Narnia was a 'foretaste of the feast to come.'" Turns out, when I thought he was day-dreaming through church service, he's been listening carefully, and he's seeing on his own the connections between the books and our faith!
I'm grateful that my youngest daughter was not quite ready to join us for these nightly readings. That means I will have a chance in a year or two to pull out the books again, get her to snuggle down with me before bed, and read them all again!
It was a little bittersweet, turning the last page of The Last Battle with Daniel. At least we had The Hobbit to move on to! Daniel is already making plans after TH for us to move on to LotR, and then to read CoN again. "Mom, these are the best books in the world!" he told me, sometime in the middle of Silver Chair. 25 years and many, many books after my first introduction to CoN, I am still inclined to agree.