I remember that in third and fifth grade my elementary school teacher read to us The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, The Silver Chair, Voyage of the Dawn Treader, and The Horse and His Boy. It was a very memorable experience from decades ago. My teacher had a gift for dramatizing Narnia and Bible stories, and she would have made a fine actress. This was my introduction to Narnia and C. S. Lewis. Did you have a similar experience from your childhood? Do teachers still read stories out loud in class? I think that is a good way to introduce children to the classic books of literature. 🙂
In a way, I did.
After Kindergarten, I'd decided the public school system wasn't for me and my mother began homeschooling. She also read the books to me and my brother as bedtime stories. They weren't part of our educational curriculum or anything though.
For better or worse-for who knows what may unfold from a chrysalis?-hope was left behind.
-The God Beneath the Sea by Leon Garfield & Edward Blishen check out my blog!
My school was an old fashioned small town Christian school. Many of the people here probably are home schooled, but decades ago almost everyone went to the traditional schools and the church supported schools. I guess the schools were better back then, and the teachers cared about giving their students great literature, and that would include the Narnia books. Reading them aloud would get the students interested in reading the books themselves.
Sad to say, I missed the books as a child. My parents left UK in 1950, and never heard of them in NZ. When The Last Battle was published, I was 3 months old. They didn't turn up in my primary school library, or the children's library at the city public library.
It wasn't until a friend at high school (who often put me onto good books) recommended LWW, that I knew anything about them. I was about 13, and just at the age Lewis described in his dedication to Lucy Barwell. After a chapter or two, I returned it to the library.
However it was a primary (elementary) school teacher who recommended them several years later, when I was old enough to enjoy fairy tales again. I'm sure he read them to his classes! He has a deep voice, which would be wonderful for Aslan. He was a friend at church who led our section of the Sunday School (4-7 year olds). I asked for a set of the books for Christmas.
There, shining in the sunrise, larger than they had seen him before, shaking his mane (for it had apparently grown again) stood Aslan himself.
"...when a willing victim who had committed no treachery was killed in a traitor's stead, the Table would crack and Death itself would start working backwards."
