From: Nancy Silverrod <nsilverrod>
Date: Mon, 29 Nov 2004 14:34:32 -0800

As a child from a non-religious, in fact, atheistic Jewish family, I read the Narnia books many times, and never saw the Christian subtext, so I don't think it's necessarily obvious to children. What we bring, culturally, to our reading really does influence our interpretation of it.

 

Maia notes that it was okay to be a girl in the books, but not a woman; but in fact, there were really very few adult (human) characters at all in the books, and that was one of the things that made them so enjoyable. You could just slip through the back of that wardrobe, as a child, and be empowered to face adventure and adversity; be trusted to know (or learn) right from wrong; to be able to make choices-and if a special lion was there at critical moments, how much more magical!

 

Of all the many books I've read over the years that had a moral
"message" for children, these were some of the least heavy-handed! To my mind, L'Engle is much more obvious.

 

Nancy Silverrod

San Francisco Public Library

100 Larkin St.

San Francisco, CA 94102
Received on Mon 29 Nov 2004 04:34:32 PM CST