Cracked this open for the first time last night, shortly after my shift started. At 6:25, when I had to take care of some end-of-shift chores, I had 100 pages left.
100 pages!!!
My kingdom for another 40 minutes!
Category: YA/MG/Children’s Books
Betcha can’t guess why we were there…
(Obviously, it was the large Magic Tree House display in the kids’ section that drew us)
(click on the image to see the strip in its full size)
“Ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooohhhhhh!”
Deathly Hallows cover released (a wrap around!).
Click here for a full image, and non-US covers.
I’ve long thought that the idea of reading The Chronicles of Narnia in chronological order is plain silly. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe was the first, and needs to be read first. Prequels, like The Magician’s Nephew, demand a knowledge of the “quels” they’re “pre-” to. As I’ve been reading the series with my kids over the last few months (we step into The Last Battle today), I’ve become even more convinced that Lewis told them in the right order when he wrote them, not when he talked about it later.
John Miller over at National Review Online makes the case wonderfully. Mostly by quoting the two books vying for first read. He’s right, it’s Wardrobe all the way.
Lewis put the matter more succinctly in a letter toward the end of his life: “An author doesn’t necessarily understand the meaning of his own story better than anyone else.”
Lewis of course understood the meaning of Narnia. But a wise expert is not the same thing as a final authority — and on the question of which Narnia book should come first, Lewis was utterly wrong.
Great read. Better pacing than Rowling’s done in awhile. That’s all I can say for now.
Thanks for the idea Ransom, hope this isn’t too much of a rip off….
at least ’til 12:01 am tomorrow.
In honor of the Potter-mania, I’d like to post a few links:
- Doug Jones’ “Most Real Fantasy”, best line:”Harry Potter can’t be a threat. Wizardry doesn’t really work. And if your kids are really tempted to join a coven then it’s not a giant leap to say that you’ve failed miserably as a parent. Where is the ballast in your childrearing?”
- Go watch “Welcome Back Potter” from last night’s The Daily Show (you have to sit through a little bit of other hilarious stuff first). Stewart brings up the oft-quoted Cardinal Ratzinger interview where he talked about the books containing, ““subtle seductions that work imperceptibly, and because of that deeply, and erode Christianity in the soul before it can even grow properly.” Stewart replies “yes, and really who knows better how children can be subtely seduced…”
- While you’re there, see “Harry Potter Terror” also from the Daily Show
- I think this photo shows the greatest threat posed by Rowling’s books: those hats catching on.
- Meghan Cox’ A Classic for the Ages?is worth a read
- Lastly, sure the themes get a little old, but most of the 11 pages here are worth a read.
Down to hours before Half-Blood Prince and we’re starting to get noise about The Goblet of Fire movie. A handful of early reviews at aintitcool already, and now one from a regular.
Can’t wait for this one!
Well, like so many, many Americans (and Brits and maybe even the Canadians) ) my family was at Barnes & Noble at midnight. Following a church activity, we didn’t have time to deposit the kids anywhere, so at 10 o’clock my 4, 3, and 1 yr old come tromping into the Harry Potter party.
Now all my kids know about Harry is that mommy and daddy really like him, and they’ve seen the trailers for the movies on some of their videos. But they got caught up in all the excitement–the boys got lightning bolts painted on their foreheads, got their picture taken with a cardboard Harry, etc. And all the people dressed up in costumes! Too cool.
It was actually pretty neat–I wish we weren’t carrying tired kids around so we could’ve really gotten into things, but there was a good atmosphere. Okay, I talked to one clerk who was very happy that, unlike The Goblet of Fire she was working on the cash register end–“the happy end”–wherein she was dealing with people who had books. Last time around she had to deal with those ninnies who didn’t preorder, and therefore didn’t get a book (how insane do you have to be to actually think for a nanosecond that you’re going to get a book like this by just walking in from the street with hundreds of crazed fans already in the store?) Oh yeah, I was talking about the nice atmosphere.
All these kids (10-60 in age) assembled to get their hands on a book–to be excited about reading a book. I know, I know this keeps getting brought up as one of the positive things about the series, but it was very satisfying to see this much interest in something that didn’t feature CGI.
Anyhow, we had fun–the kids got an interesting experience, and a nap in the van–
and we got the book