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Did you have the books read to you by your elementary school teacher?

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Narnian78
(@narnian78)
NarniaWeb Guru

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. 🙂

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Topic starter Posted : March 26, 2026 1:19 pm
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Col Klink
(@col-klink)
NarniaWeb Guru

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.
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Posted : March 26, 2026 1:45 pm
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Narnian78
(@narnian78)
NarniaWeb Guru

@col-klink 

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 public 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. 

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Topic starter Posted : March 26, 2026 2:10 pm
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coracle
(@coracle)
NarniaWeb's Auntie Moderator

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 the "kids' book" 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 my Dad 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."

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Posted : March 26, 2026 2:39 pm
Pete, waggawerewolf27, DavidD and 1 people liked
waggawerewolf27
(@waggawerewolf27)
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No, at what the rest of you might call "elementary school", that is to say, from kindergarten at 4 to 5 years old, to 6th class, or what we call Infants & Primary school here, in NSW, I was at boarding school, and it was one of the older girls in our dormitory who before "lights out" would paraphrase the Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe, which she had borrowed from the school library which I wasn't allowed to visit. Later, in life, having escaped that school midway through 3rd class (1st year of Primary school) I eventually became a librarian. 

Naturally, I read the Narnia Chronicles to my own children when they were young, & also ensured they had access to their own copies of these books, but it wasn't until one of my children was in now 7th year (1st year of High School) that I was surprised to learn that LWW was also one of the books she was reading in class for English. 

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Posted : March 26, 2026 5:42 pm
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DavidD
(@davidd)
NarniaWeb Nut

My introduction to Narnia occurred when my 4th grade teacher began reading The Magician’s Nephew to our class. I loved it! She stopped reading it when we got to “The Fight at the Lamppost”, so the class never got to Narnia itself in the classroom.

i wanted to continue the series so much  that I asked my mum to read the books to myself and my twin brother. She would read a chapter to us before we went to bed when she had the time. (My sister listened to a lot of it too during the first book.)

We slowly covered all seven of the chronicles over the next three years. After that, I had caught the bug and started re-reading the books myself.

The term is over: the holidays have begun.
The dream is ended: this is the morning

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Posted : March 26, 2026 6:46 pm
coracle, Pete, waggawerewolf27 and 2 people liked
Narnian78
(@narnian78)
NarniaWeb Guru

@waggawerewolf27 

My elementary school had Kindergarten through ninth grade. The elementary and middle grades were in the same building.  I had the same teacher in third and fifth grade. I was about eight and ten years old when the teacher read us the Narnia books.  So I was at a very impressionable age.  

But it was years before I read all seven of the books.  I read all seven of them between high school and college and when I took the C. S. Lewis course in college with Dr. Schakel.  And I read them a couple of more times after that about ten years later. But I would recommend reading them for the first time when children are eight or ten years old even if your teacher doesn’t read them to you. I don’t think schools promote the books enough today.

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Topic starter Posted : March 26, 2026 8:50 pm
Glenwit
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I was actually home schooled so we read them as a family at home.  Close enough I guess Thumbs up  

This is the journey
This is the trial
For the hero inside us all
I can hear adventure call
Here we go

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Posted : March 27, 2026 3:24 am
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Pete
 Pete
(@pete)
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I had LWW read to me twice when I was at school, once in primary school, probably around grade 5, and the second time, in the first year of high school in 7th grade, when the class each had our own copies and followed along (taking turns reading).  I also recall watching the BBC version of LWW twice in primary school, once in around early primary school (around 3rd grade I think) and then later on around 5th grade.  As I was already quite familiar with the BBC series when we watched it and later read it at school, I often found I had those voices in my head! Giggle

*~JESUS is my REASON!~*

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Posted : March 27, 2026 4:47 am
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fantasia
(@fantasia)
Member Admin

My memory is fuzzy here, but I believe I did have a teacher read LWW. That's where I watched the animated LWW, so it makes sense that would have gone with the book.

But the entire series was read by my Mom, so I could be getting mixed up with that.

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Posted : March 27, 2026 7:52 am
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johobbit
(@jo)
SO mod; WC captain Moderator

My parents began reading The Chronicles of Narnia to us when I was a pre-schooler, and kept on until we could read them ourselves. I am forever grateful for my mother and father doing this.They loved the books, too! For some reason, I can't recall whether any teacher I had read them to us. Confused  

Then, in turn, we read the Chronicles to our own children, either sitting around our campfire of a summer evening after a swim, or, in the snowy winter, cuddly-cozy in their pjs in our home. Such grand and special memories!

And recently, we gifted our granddaughter with a full, coloured-illustration set of The CoN. Love Passing this wonderful tradition on through the generations! 


Signature by Narnian_Badger, thanks! (2013)
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Posted : March 27, 2026 7:58 am
Varnafinde, stargazer, Pete and 3 people liked
stargazer
(@stargazer)
Member Moderator

Maybe it's my advanced age (maybe things were different back in the 1960s in my small town) or my fading memory, but I don't remember a teacher reading any stories to us in school. I read a lot on my own outside of school, mostly science fiction.

I wasn't introduced to Narnia at all until the late 1970s when a friend at university told me about them. In his enthusiasm, he told me the plot of LWW and "decoded" its Christian elements. Despite the spoilers, I was intrigued enough to seek out all the books at a local used bookstore. I still have that set.

But all night, Aslan and the Moon gazed upon each other with joyful and unblinking eyes.

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Posted : March 29, 2026 12:58 pm
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Narnian78
(@narnian78)
NarniaWeb Guru

I wonder if today’s elementary school teachers would take the time to read stories aloud to their students. I remember that our teacher read not only the Narnia books but other classics like Treasure Island and My Friend Flicka. Probably the schools have become too obsessed with technology to do something slower paced like reading stories to children. The Narnia books and other classics of children’s literature probably aren’t required reading in most of today’s schools. By the time the students are in college they will know very little about literature and books.  It seems like something is lost from their education.

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Topic starter Posted : March 30, 2026 4:26 am
waggawerewolf27
(@waggawerewolf27)
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@narnian78  Maybe it's my advanced age (maybe things were different back in the 1960s in my small town) or my fading memory, but I don't remember a teacher reading any stories to us in school. I read a lot on my own outside of school, mostly science fiction

Yes, our 3rd class teacher (at boarding school) did read stories, such as Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin, or Girl of the Limberlost, wherever that was & which bored me to tears, when us 3rd class types, mostly boys or us few girls, were only about 8 years old. It seemed everyone there read Ethel Turner's Seven Little Australians, and a Victorian melodramatic sob story called "A basket of flowers". She did read other, more suitable stories, later, including Pookie and the Gypsies, maybe Peter Rabbit and Enid Blyton's Noddy. But when I transferred to an ordinary Public (State) school, we listened in class to radio broadcasts from the ABC, about people like Leonidas the Spartan King, Leif Erickson, William Wilberforce, and Alfred the Great, which I enjoyed immensely. They had actors putting a bit of life into these broadcasts, and they enchanted me. 

And in 5th & 6th class (10 & 11 years old), we had a library of books at the back of the classroom: soulful ones like David Copperfield, Robin Hood, Captain Mallory's tales of King Arthur, and the Children of the New Forest as well as Huckleberry Finn. If I wanted to read the Chronicles of Narnia I would have had to go to the Council Library across the road, where I could read what I liked. Grin Libraries were heaven to me, like the Wood between the Worlds

It depends on what the curriculum at school happens to be, what you get access to and what you don't. 

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Posted : March 31, 2026 5:27 am
Varnafinde, Pete, DavidD and 1 people liked
Narnian78
(@narnian78)
NarniaWeb Guru

I think audio recordings of someone reading the Narnia books are still available. They are usually read by actors with good voices. I still have the vinyl LP’s of readings from the Narnia books by Ian Richardson, Claire Bloom, and Anthony Quayle. They are each about one hour from each of the first four books.  If you don’t mind an abridged story they are quite good listening. It is good for children and adults to introduce them to the books by listening to parts of them read aloud by talented actors. I think today they may be available on CD’s or download. I kind of wish that the recordings were longer. 🙂

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Topic starter Posted : March 31, 2026 5:47 am
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