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The author is able to create an urban setting with unique characters that students may be able to find at least one to connect with. The reader is able to follow each character and how they become involved with the urban garden, their individuality is shown through the telling of their background and how their dialogue supports their background. This book continues to build its quality by providing unexpected insights through the characters as the reader learns the personal background of each individual and how they find an escape and peace within the garden.

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This Newbery award winner takes place over a few months the pacing is slowed down in order to follow along with each individual character as they decide if the new family addition is good enough to support the family. A sense of tension is included as the children are unsure if they are good enough for Sarah to stay and marry their father. The theme is accurate with the story line as it follows a widowed family living in the Midwest during the nineteen hundreds.

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The setting of the story creates the plot as the father and daughter duo are walking to the laundromat in the city. After the duo starts the laundry the main character is unable to tell her father that she left her stuffed toy. This creates an altercation that quickens the pace of the story as all characters become frustrated and confused with one another creating a tension in the book that is quickly resolved after identifying the issue. The reader is able to identify the conflict due to the point of view and understanding that the main character is unable to communicate why she is upset.

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This book has notable markers of quality through the use of figurative language by using onomatopoeias to build on the sequence of scenes that visualize the plot. Illustrations in the book help build the setting for readers and provides a different point of view from what the main character thinks he’s doing to what he’s actually doing. Visual awareness through illustrations captures the reader's attention and invites the reader to become involved in identifying the what the problem is in the plot and how to possibly find a solution. Schema is built upon by invoking the reader's prior knowledge when assessing the situation in order to find a solution.

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The style and language of the poem that include figurative language, similes, and metaphors are used creates a fast paced rhythmic beat throughout the poem. The use of figurative language allows for the reader to visualize the descriptions and make an accurate illustration of what is being read.

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The reader is able to follow a rhythm that resembles a galloping pattern when following along. The use of rhyming allows the reader to understand musical language with the flow and pacing of the piece of literature. It can be understood that the main character does not want to go to school, and is trying to come up with many excuses to get out of it.

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This is a fantasy book about a tiger that no one but the main character can see. In connection to her Korena culture and her grandma's disappearance, there is a disconnection as the plot follows along with the main character and solving the mystery of where her grandmother had gone. It provides unexpected insights for the reader as well as the protagonist to show that there are secrets withheld from the protagonists and that is why she is unable to understand why such an important person has disappeared.

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Winner of the Boston Globe Horn Book Honor Award for Fiction and Poetry

"Roars to life with just a touch of magic." -Kirkus Reviews, starred review

"A heartfelt reminder of the wonder and beauty in our everyday lives." -Booklist, starred review

" Deeply moving... vulnerable and mythic storytelling in the vein of Erin Entrada Kelly and Kacen Callender." -School Library Journal, starred review

"Keller's ( The Science of Breakable Things) #OwnVoices journey through Korean mythology begins with a fantastical quest and slowly transforms into a tale about letting go and the immortality that story can allow." -Publishers Weekly, starred review

"It's a complex, satisfying story, one that foregrounds family and healing alongside a love for Korean folklore." - The Bulletin, starred review

"This beautiful book reminds us that, even in a world filled with stolen stars, crafty tigers, and family secrets that spring from folklore, the most powerful magic of storytelling is the story we decide to tell about ourselves." -Kat Yeh, author of The Truth About Twinkie Pie
"An intoxicating mix of folktale, fantasy, friendship and love (and tigers!). Through a series of challenges-and also a lot of laughter-Lily (a.k.a. Lily Bean, Eggi, Little Egg) finds out what she is made of. She is a character who'll stay with me-and whom I already miss!" -Marie Myung-Ok Lee, author of Finding My Voice and Somebody's Daughter
" An ambitious and bewitching brew of Korean folklore, magical realism, and classic coming-of-age story, When You Trap a Tiger is a tender tale as unique as it is universal. Keller's writing shimmers with magic, heart, and hope." -Ali Standish, author of Before I Was Ethan

Praise for Tae Keller's The Science of Breakable Things:

Named one of the Best Books of the Year by NPR, Kirkus Reviews, and the Chicago Public Library!

"A compassionate glimpse of mental illness accessible to a broad audience." - Kirkus Reviews, starred review

"A winning story full of heart and action." - Booklist, starred review

" Holy moly!!! This book made me feel." -Colby Sharp, editor of The Creativity Project

"Natalie is an engaging narrator whose struggles at home and with her peers ring true." -Deborah Hopkinson, award-winning author

" Inspiring, emotional, and heartwarming." -Melissa Savage, author of Lemons

Asian/Pacific American Librarians Association (APLA)-Literature Award WINNER 2021

Newbery Medal Winner WINNER 2021

Georgia Children's Book Master List NOMINEE 2021

Vermont Golden Dome Book Award NOMINEE 2021

Washington Evergreen Young Adult Book Award NOMINEE 2022

ALSC Notable Children's Books SELECTION 2021

Bank Street College Best Children's Book of the Year SELECTION 2021

Chicago Public Library Best Books SELECTION 2020

Cooperative Children's Book Center Choices SELECTION 2021

Kansas State Reading Circle Award SELECTION 2020

Texas Lone Star Reading List SELECTION 2021

Boston Globe-Horn Book Honor Book HONOR 2020

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When You Trap a Tiger by Tae Keller: 9781524715731 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books

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WINNER OF THE NEWBERY MEDAL * WINNER OF THE ASIAN/PACIFIC AMERICAN AWARD FOR CHILDREN'S LITERATURE * #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER Would you make a deal with a magical tiger? This uplifting...

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The main character is determined to find a better fortune for her family. With this the plot takes us to multiple events that prove that the stories that she heard from her father were true, which drove the main character even harder with each addition to the plot. While multiple incidents occur in the story; the plot is not rushed and has a pacing that is easy to follow. The overall tone is optimistic as the protagonist is able to gather the necessary things in order to meet the Man on the Moon.

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Where the Mountain Meets the Moon is a fantasy- adventure children's novel inspired by Chinese folklore. It was written and illustrated by Grace Lin and published in 2009. The novel received a 2010 Newbery Honor and the 2010 Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Children's Literature. It has been translated into Chinese, French, Hebrew, Romanian, Korean and Slovene.

By a bare mountain, where the Jade River runs through, lies a poor, mud-covered village known as the Village of Fruitless Mountain, where the protagonist, Minli lives. Minli is a young ten-year-old girl with a fast and eager spirit, and is constantly ready for adventure. However, what she especially enjoys are her father, Ba's stories, which are often told at the dinner table. Minli's mother, Ma, instead despises the stories that Ba tells, feeling that they are simply "nonsense." Also, she is full of bitterness and resentment due to their poverty.

All of the villagers, along with Minli's family, are also very poor, as farming is difficult in the hard and dry land due to Fruitless Mountain being the broken and lonely heart of the immortal Jade Dragon, a dragon that once brought rain to the Earth. Plus, there is barely enough rice to feed the people there, causing Minli to develop a wish for good fortune.

Much to the displeasure of Ma, Minli spends her precious money on a goldfish. It turns out the goldfish can talk when people want to hear it. She decides to let it go because of how bitter it made Ma. When she does so, the goldfish tells her directions to Never-Ending Mountain, where a wise immortal known as the Old Man of the Moon lives. According to the goldfish, the wise man can answer Minli's question on how to bring good fortune to her family and the village. The following day, Minli then sets out, freeing the goldfish so as not to burden her parents further, and leaves the village to find "the old man of the moon". When her parents find out she is gone, they try to look for her, but are stopped by the goldfish seller, who tells them to trust Minli. Meanwhile, Minli sleeps for the night in the forest, only to wake up to find a trapped dragon, which she saves. They become friends, and Dragon offers to be her steed for the journey, despite the fact that he cannot fly, unlike other dragons. Dragon also reveals that he was born from a painting and came to life when his eyes were painted.

Along the way, they encounter selfish monkeys, whom Minli manages to trick into letting them pass, and together they enter the City of Bright Moonlight, where Minli leaves Dragon in a cave and takes refuge in a boy's home. The boy is poor and has nothing but a buffalo but helps her find the king, who possesses a borrowed line of text, which is essential to finding the Old Man of the Moon. She ultimately meets the king, and he willingly gives up the borrowed line, which is revealed to be a page from the Book of Fortune, a legendary book that tells of fates and can be read only by immortal folk. Outside the city, Dragon also obtains a red string of destiny that is used to tie people destined to meet and marry together, which he believes is the borrowed line. The two then meet and after relating their adventures, set off once again, puzzled as to which is the real borrowed line.

Meanwhile, at the Village of Fruitless Mountain, Ba and Ma have decided to return home and wait for Minli, and during this time, Ma feels remorse for having been so discontent when she already had her own precious treasure: her daughter.

On the journey, Dragon tries to protect Minli from a poisonous Green Tiger but gets injured in the process and would have died had Minli not sought help from a nearby village of Moon Rain. The grandfather, A-Gong, gives Dragon medicine that doubles as tea. A set of twins from the village manage to trick the Green Tiger down an abandoned well and the next day take Minli and Dragon to Never-Ending Mountain, which turns out to be only a day's journey from the village. The twins explain that their village's name is due to raining seeds that fall from the moon every night, allowing flowering trees to bloom there. The blooms of the flowering trees also provide the antidote to the Green Tiger's poison, which saved Dragon. Using the borrowed line of text and the line of destiny, the adventurers stitch a kite that stretches into a bridge, and Minli goes on alone to meet the Old Man of the Moon. However, he informs her that she can ask only one question. After contemplating her choices, Minli chooses to ask Dragon's question for him: Why can he not fly? The old man instructs her to remove a rock from Dragon's head, which has been preventing him from flying. She does so, and immediately Dragon can fly. Together they fly home to Minli's village. The "rock" turns out to be the coveted Dragon's Pearl, which brings enormous wealth to her village. The Jade Dragon reunites with one of her children, Dragon, and transforms Fruitless Mountain to Fruitful Mountain. Because of Minli's sacrifice to help a friend, she and her family receive everything they could ever have hoped for.

Jennifer Rothschild from School Library Journal stated in her review: "The author's writing is elegant, and her full-color illustrations are stunning."

Andrew Medlar from said: "Lin creates a strong, memorable heroine & mystical land [...] children will embrace this [...] story..."

A companion, titled Starry River of the Sky, was published on February 11, 2014. On August 20, 2015, Lin announced the sequel to the novel, titled When the Sea Turns to Silver. The new book was published on October 4, 2016.

In August 2015, Lin revealed that the film rights for the book had been bought. However, she is still not sure if the film will be made or if it will not be made. She thinks it will be made from 2020 to 2025. If not by then, the film will probably not be made at all. She said there will be a movie released on 11/21/2020, however the movie was never made.

A stage adaptation based on Lin's book was performed at Wheelock Family Theater in Boston, in April 2014. The performance starred Caroline Workman as Minli, Michael Tow as Storyteller/ Minli's Ba, and was directed by Jane Staab.

According to Journal of Education, Grace Lin is the "best-selling author of The Year of the Dog and The Year of the Rat".

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Where the Mountain Meets the Moon - Wikipedia

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Where the Mountain Meets the Moon is a fantasy- adventure children's novel inspired by Chinese folklore. It was written and illustrated by Grace Lin and published in 2009. The novel received a 2010 Newbery Honor and the 2010 Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Children's Literature. It has been translated into Chinese, French, Hebrew, Romanian, Korean and Slovene.

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Bridge to Terabithia creates a place for children to escape reality and are able to successfully solve the issues that may be happening in their imaginary world compared to the real world. The reader is able to connect with the main characters and learn to cope with a traumatic event that conspired while trying to enter this imaginary realm. The dialogue is able to allow the reader to immerse themselves in the story and connect with the characters by understanding the insight given.

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Bridge to Terabithia (novel) - Wikipedia

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Irish Book Award Children’s Book of the Year, Irish Book Award People’s Choice Book of the Year, Bisto Book of the Year, Que Leer Award Best International Novel of the Year (Spain), Orange Prize Readers Group Book of the Year. The reader is provided with an unexpected insight of what it was like for children to live through the Holocaust as two boys are given the different perspectives of the events conspiring on the side of the antagonists. The setting clarifies the conflict as one of the young boys are imprisoned in a concentration camp and the other is a son of one of those whom control it. The reader is able to form a connection with both characters as they meets a tragic end.

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The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas is a 2006 historical novel by Irish novelist John Boyne. The plot concerns a German boy named Bruno whose father is the commandant of Auschwitz and Bruno's friendship with a Jewish detainee named Shmuel.

Boyne wrote the entire first draft in two and a half days, without sleeping much; but also said that he was quite a serious student of Holocaust-related literature for years before the idea for the novel even came to him.

The book has received a divided response from critics, with positive reviews praising the story as an effective morality tale. Holocaust scholars, historians and memorial organizations have criticised the book for its historical inaccuracies, which have been deemed potentially damaging to Holocaust education efforts.

In both 2007 and 2008, it was the best-selling book of the year in Spain, and it reached number one on The New York Times Best Seller list. The book was adapted into a homonymous film in 2008, a ballet in 2017 and an opera entitled A Child in Striped Pyjamas in 2023. A sequel, All the Broken Places, was published in 2022.

John Boyne has described the conception of his novel as an idea popping into his head instantly of "two boys, the mirror of each other, sitting either side of a wire fence". While the conception of the book came about fast, his inspiration for writing has a more lengthy foundation. Boyne has stated that his style and writing process has been influenced by Malcolm Bradbury at the University of East Anglia, who suggested he write every day without rest days.

Unlike the novels written by him, Boyne has described how he wrote the first draft of The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas in roughly two days and a half, with the idea for the novel coming to him on Tuesday, April 27, then wrote non-stop until Friday at noon. Afterwards, he ended up writing ten different drafts before sending his book to the editor. As for the subject material and research that Boyne undertook to write the book, Professor Gerd Bayer from the University of Erlangen has stated that Boyne's reader should not rely on "the actual truth-value of his text".

Bruno is a nine-year-old boy growing up during World War II in Berlin. He lives with his parents, his twelve-year-old sister Gretel whom he has nicknamed "A Hopeless Case", and maids, one of whom is named Maria and another is a Jewish chef named Pavel. After a visit by Adolf Hitler, whose title the Bruno commonly mispronounces as "Fury", Bruno's father Ralf is promoted to Commandant of the death camp Auschwitz, which Bruno mispronounces as "Out-With".

Bruno is initially upset about having to move to Auschwitz and is almost in tears at the prospect of leaving his "best friends for life", Daniel, Karl, and Martin. From the house at Auschwitz, Bruno sees the camp in which the prisoners' uniforms appear to him to be "striped pyjamas". One day Bruno decides to explore the wire fence surrounding the camp. He meets a Jewish boy, Shmuel, who he learns shares his birthday (April 15) and age. Shmuel says that his father, grandfather, and brother are with him on his side of the fence, but he is separated from his mother. Bruno and Shmuel talk and become very good friends although Bruno still does not understand very much about Shmuel or his life. Nearly every day, unless it is raining, Bruno goes to see Shmuel and sneaks him food. Over time, Bruno notices that Shmuel is rapidly losing weight.

Bruno concocts a plan with Shmuel to sneak into the camp to look for Shmuel's father, who has gone missing. Shmuel brings a set of prison clothes and Bruno leaves his own clothes outside the fence. As they search the camp they are captured, added to a group of prisoners on a "march", and led into a gas chamber, which Bruno assumes is simply a rain shelter. In the gas chamber, Bruno apologises to Shmuel for not finding his father and tells Shmuel that he is his best friend for life. It is not made clear if Shmuel answers before the doors close and the lights go out, although Bruno determines to never let go of Shmuel's hand.

Bruno is never seen again, his clothes being discovered by a soldier days later. His mother, Elsa, spends months searching for him, even returning to their old home, before at last moving back to Berlin with Gretel, who isolates herself in her room. Ralf spends a year more at Auschwitz, becoming ruthless and cold to his subordinates. A year later, he returns to the place where Bruno's clothes were found, finding the gap in the fence. He deduces how his son disappeared and collapses to the ground in grief. Months later, Allied troops liberate the camp and Ralf, wracked with guilt and self-loathing, allows himself to be taken prisoner without resistance.

The book ends with the phrase "Of course, all of this happened a long time ago and nothing like that could ever happen again. Not in this day and age".

The Boy in The Striped Pyjamas fits into the genre of Holocaust fiction. Boyne uses general knowledge about the Holocaust to create a self-described "fable", that relies more on a story of moral truth than historical accuracy. This type of literature, as shown in The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, tends to be told to children, from a child's perspective. By having one child share the "bitter herbs" of history with another, the novel instills moral obligation in children.

Kenneth Kidd, professor of English at the University of Florida, argues that John Boyne's use of fable allows him to explore the darker elements of the Holocaust with more of a cautionary tale resulting.

Sophie Melissa Smith, a PhD candidate at the University of Southampton, argues that writing a factual story as a fable is damaging as it may produce misconceptions about the Holocaust. Examples include the ability of Shmuel to escape work and Bruno's ability to approach an electrified fence.

Smith claims that Boyne lowers the culpability of Nazis like Bruno's father by not just humanizing them but also creating a sense of obligation in characters like Bruno's father, as Bruno's father was a Commandant at a large concentration camp. Additionally, the depiction of the story told through Bruno creates a greater ignorance of the Nazi regime by using words such as "the Fury" in place of the Fuhrer and "Out-with" in place of Auschwitz. Generally, critics see the trivialization of the Nazi regime in this portrayal as damaging to Holocaust education.

Educational implications

A 2009 study by the London Jewish Cultural Centre conducted a survey in which 75% of respondents thought Boyne's novel was based on a true story. Many students also thought "the tragic death of Bruno brought about the end of concentration camps."

Michael Gray, Director of Studies at Harrow School and author of Contemporary Debates in Holocaust Education and Teaching the Holocaust: Practical Approaches for Ages 11-18, described the book in 2014 as "a curse for Holocaust education." In an opinion column for the Jewish Chronicle, Noah Max criticised Gray: "Gray's 2015 study... [found] that 'respondents almost universally expressed their eagerness for studying the topic and frequently remarked that this [the Shoah] was one of the most interesting periods of history' (my italics). His sample of 298 Year 9 students from London and Oxford is perilously narrow given the book's widespread popularity and none of his other findings are anywhere near that substantial. However, even in a sample so small, any 'universal' finding is worthy of close attention."

Criticising the book's accuracy, the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum commented in 2020 that the novel "should be avoided by anyone who studies or teaches about the Holocaust." The Melbourne Holocaust Museum, while finding the book a powerful introduction to the subject, cautions teachers regarding its many inaccuracies.

Following on from their research in 2016, that suggested that pupils reach mistaken and/or misleading conclusions about the Holocaust from the book, The UCL Centre for Holocaust Education's 2020 research found that 35% of teachers in England conducting lessons on the Holocaust use it, or the film.

In response to Noah Max's operatic adaptation of the book, Professor Nathan Abrams wrote that "it is a very tricky task to translate the magnitude of the Holocaust to a younger audience. Any device, however flawed, should be applauded for attempting to do so even if it does not fully succeed. It is the task of the reader to go and learn more to put the novel in context."

Kathryn Hughes, writing in The Guardian, calls the novel "a small wonder of a book." She takes issue with the laxness of Auschwitz and describes the novel as "something that borders on fable," arguing that "Bruno's innocence comes to stand for the willful refusal of all adult Germans to see what was going on under their noses."

Nicholas Tucker, writing in The Independent, calls the novel "a fine addition to a once taboo area of history, at least where children's literature is concerned." He asserts that it is a good depiction of a tragic event that strays away from graphic details, with the exception of the "killer punch" at the end of the novel.

Ed Wright, writing in of Melbourne, calls the novel "a touching tale of an odd friendship between two boys in horrendous circumstances and a reminder of man's capacity for inhumanity." He felt that the depiction of Bruno and Shmuel's friendship was a classic childhood friendship with a naïvety of their surroundings. He concludes by observing that " The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas is subtitled A Fable", and sets out to create a moral story of human nature in a fable format.

A. O. Scott, writing in The New York Times, questioned the author and publisher's choice to intentionally keep the Holocaust setting of the book vague in both the dust jacket summary and the early portion of the novel. Scott described how the experiences of the characters were supposed to be represented as separate from the setting of the Holocaust, and this creates a lack of the informative nature seen in other novels of Holocaust literature such as by Elie Wiesel. Scott claims that "there is something awkward about the way Boyne manages to disguise, and then to disclose, the historical context." Scott concludes that "to mold the Holocaust into an allegory, as Boyne does here with perfectly benign intent, is to step away from its reality."

Rabbi Benjamin Blech offered a historical criticism, contending that the premise of the book and subsequent film - that there could be a child of Shmuel's age in Auschwitz - was impossible, writing of the book: "Note to the reader: there were no 9-year-old Jewish boys in Auschwitz - the Nazis immediately gassed those not old enough to work." Rabbi Blech affirmed the opinion of a Holocaust survivor friend that the book is "not just a lie and not just a fairytale, but a profanation." Students who read it, he warns, may believe the camps "weren't that bad" if a boy could conduct a clandestine friendship with a Jewish captive of the same age, unaware of "the constant presence of death."

Holocaust scholar Henry Gonshak rebuts Blech's historical contention in his book, Hollywood and the Holocaust. He writes that "the rabbi found implausible Shmuel's very existence in the camp," but states that "Blech is factually incorrect." While there were no female children, records have shown that in 1944 "there were 619 male children at the camp, ranging in age from one month to fourteen years old."

Gonshak acknowledges that this presence of children does not take away from the thousands who were murdered in the gas chambers.

In 2008, two years after being published, the novel was made into a movie The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, directed by Mark Herman.

In 2017, the novel was adapted into a ballet by the Northern Ballet. The score is produced by Gary Yershon. Reviews of the ballet are generally negative with Zo and Euml Anderson of The Independent stating the casting of children's parts as adults works against "the naivety of a child's viewpoint," which the novel captures. The Yorkshire Post's review described the score as "a relentless assault on the ears," but apart from the music, it stated that it has redeemable quality in the cast, despite being depressing.

In 2023 the novel was adapted into an opera entitled A Child In Striped Pyjamas by Noah Max. He says of Boyne's book: "It's very hard to convince children to read a book about something as dark and serious as the Holocaust and what I find amazing is that while not all adults get the profound symbolism of the story, kids get it. They pick up on the fact that the children have the same birthday and are the same child." On the appropriateness of depicting the Holocaust through opera, Max says: "the only way to convey its magnitude - and in such a way that people understood it was symbolic and not real - was through opera." The piece was positively received by critics. Barry Millington gave A Child In Striped Pyjamas four stars in the London Evening Standard, describing the work as "intense, harrowing drama... [which] invites universal grief". In The Telegraph Sir Nicholas Kenyon wrote that the piece was "emotionally ambitious... vocally eloquent... there can be no doubt of the integrity with which the tight-knit company deliver it."

1. "Interview with Children's Author John Boyne". 2006. Archived from the original on 21 July 2011.

2. ^ "John Boyne talks About The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas". www.whatsonlive.co.uk.

3. ^ Gray, Michael (1 December 2014). "The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas: A Blessing or Curse for Holocaust Education?". Holocaust Studies. 20 (3): 109-136. doi:10.1080/17504902.2014.11435377. ISSN 1750-4902. S2CID 143231358.

4. ^ Sherwood, Harriet (27 January 2022). "The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas 'may fuel dangerous Holocaust fallacies'". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077.

5. Hannah May Randall (31 May 2019). "The Problem with 'The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas'".

6. ^ Stuart J. Foster; Andy Pearce; Alice Pettigrew (2020). Holocaust Education: Contemporary Challenges and controversies. London: UCL Press. ISBN 978-1-78735-798-3. OCLC 1159166150.

7. ^ "Biography". John Boyne.

8. The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas (2008) at IMDb

9. Coghlan, Alexandra. "Noah Max: my fight to make A Child in Striped Pyjamas". The Times. ISSN 0140-0460.

10. Millington, Barry (13 January 2023). "A Child in Striped Pyjamas at the Cockpit review - intense, harrowing drama". Evening Standard.

11. Kenyon, Nicholas (12 January 2023). "A Child In Striped Pyjamas: Holocaust drama that's emotionally ambitious and diligently delivered". The Daily Telegraph. ISSN 0307-1235.

12. ^ Devlin, Martina (22 September 2022). "All The Broken Places by John Boyne: A sister's lifetime in the shadow of the death camps". Irish Independent.

13. Boyne, John (1 April 2017). "My working day 'I began on Wednesday morning and continued for 60 hours'". The Guardian.

14. ^ Bayer, Gerd (2011). "World War II Fiction and the Ethics of Trauma". DQR Studies in Literature. 48: 155-174, 164. ProQuest 896482224.

15. Bayer, Gerd (2011). "World War II Fiction and the Ethics of Trauma". DQR Studies in Literature. 48: 155-174, 299. ProQuest 896482224.

16. ^ Seidel, Marc-David L.; Greve, Henrich R. (24 March 2017). "Emergence: How Novelty, Growth, and Formation Shape Organizations and Their Ecosystems". Emergence. Research in the Sociology of Organizations. Vol. 50. pp. 1-27. doi:10.1108/S0733-558X20170000050020. ISBN 978-1-78635-915-5.

17. Topography of Terror: A Documentation, trans. by Pamela Selwyn, (Eberl Print: Immenstadt, 2008)^ [page needed ]

18. Gray, Michael (December 2014). "The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas: A Blessing or Curse for Holocaust Education?". Holocaust Studies. 20 (3): 109-136. doi:10.1080/17504902.2014.11435377. S2CID 143231358.

19. ^ The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas: A Blessing or Curse for Holocaust Education?, Michael Gray

20. ^ Max, Noah (4 April 2023). "'Why I stand by my opera version of Striped Pyjamas'". The Jewish Chronicle. p. 18.

21. ^ McGreevy, Ronan (5 January 2020). "Avoid John Boyne's Holocaust novel, Auschwitz Museum advises". The Irish Times. Dublin, Ireland.

22. ^ How to study 'The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas' in the classroom

23. ^ The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas in English secondary schools

24. ^ "The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas is now an opera - the case for adapting the book that the Auschwitz Museum said 'should be avoided'". Bangor University.

25. ^

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The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas - Wikipedia

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The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas is a 2006 historical novel by Irish novelist John Boyne. The plot concerns a German boy named Bruno whose father is the commandant of Auschwitz and Bruno's friendship with a Jewish detainee named Shmuel.

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The 12 year old main character soon finds out that she is not in the correct dimension after her human parents vanish and demons come for the young girl. There is an unfolding of complex characters, not only for the main character and who she really is, but for those who help her on her quest. As the characters continue on their journey they are required to solve riddles in order to continue onto the next task. The story unfolds as it provides unexpected insights in who the characters are related to, and why it's so important to their history unveiling friendship, true identity, courage, and self-acceptance.

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This is a review by my 10 y.o.: The Serpent's Secret is my FAVORITE BOOK this year!!! I love all of the original stories and Kiran's charismatic persoThis is a review by my 10 y.o.: The Serpent's Secret is my FAVORITE BOOK this year!!! I love all of the original stories and Kiran's charismatic personality. Not only does Kiran look like me, but also I enjoyed all the girl power and how in the end she becomes the hero. I don't want to give too much away, but this book is truly exceptional, and I highly recommend it for every single person on earth!! I am sure anyone who reads it will become instantly enraptured in the incredible tale, just like I did. ...more (less)

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CARMEN SANDIEGO~I UNDERSTAND THAT I WILL NEVER UNDERSTAND. HOWEVER I STAND.

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The Serpent's Secret (Kiranmala and the Kingdom Beyond, #1)

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This is a review by my 10 y.o.: The Serpent's Secret is my FAVORITE BOOK this year!!! I love all of the original stories and Kiran's charismatic persoThis is a review by my 10 y.o.: The Serpent's Secret is my FAVORITE BOOK this year!!! I love all of the original stories and Kiran's charismatic personality.

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This novel uses deception and fear to control the townspeople and force them to sacrifice the youngest baby to a witch in the woods every year. A tension is created between the townspeople and the elders that are convincing the people to sacrifice a baby every year, but just as the elders deceive the townspeople, the witch is also deceived by the people in trying to understand the reason these babies are being left in the woods every year. The story highlights who the true villain is and what kind of power is being used.

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Read 13.9k reviews from the world's largest community for readers. Every year, the people of the Protectorate leave a baby as an offering to the witch who ...

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Receiving the Whitbread Book Award the story follows a grandma and her grandson that happen upon an annual witch meeting that soon quickens the pace of the plot as the child is being hunted by the witches and witness the evil of women who are trying to rid England of all children. The vocabulary invites uncommon words to the reader, such as: chambermaid, squelch, pheasant, and vile.

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The Witches is a 1983 children's novel by British author Roald Dahl. A dark fantasy, the story is set partly in Norway and partly in England, and features the experiences of a young English boy and his Norwegian grandmother in a world where child-hating societies of witches secretly exist in every country. The witches are ruled by the vicious and powerful Grand High Witch, who arrives in England to organise her plan to turn all of the children there into mice.

The Witches was originally published by Jonathan Cape in London, with illustrations by Quentin Blake who had previously collaborated with Dahl. It received mixed reviews and was criticised for misogyny. In 2012, the book was ranked number 81 among all-time best children's novels in a survey published by School Library Journal, a US monthly. In 2019, the BBC listed The Witches on its list of the 100 most influential novels. In 2012, the Grand High Witch appeared on a Royal Mail commemorative postage stamp.

The book has been adapted into audiobook recordings, a stage play, a 2007 two-part BBC Radio dramatisation, an opera, two motion pictures and a musical stage production.

The story is narrated from the perspective of an unnamed seven-year-old English boy, who goes to live with his Norwegian grandmother after his parents are killed in a car accident. The boy loves all his grandmother's stories, but he is especially enthralled by the stories about real-life witches who she says are horrific female demons who seek to kill human children. She tells him a real witch looks exactly like an ordinary woman, but there are ways of telling whether she is a witch, such as real witches have claws instead of fingernails, which they hide by wearing gloves; are bald, which they hide by wearing wigs that make them break out in rashes; have square-ended feet with no toes which they hide by wearing small, pointy shoes that cause them discomfort; have eyes with pupils that change colour; have blue spit which they use for ink and have large nostrils which they use to sniff out children, who, to a witch, smell of dog's droppings; the dirtier the child, the less likely a witch can smell them.

As specified in the parents' will, the narrator and his grandmother return to England, where he had been born and had attended school, and where the house he is inheriting is located. The grandmother warns the boy to be on his guard, since English witches are known to be among the most vicious in the world, notorious for turning children into loathsome creatures so unsuspecting adults will kill them.

The grandmother reveals witches in different countries have different customs and that, while the witches in each country have close affiliations with one another, they are not allowed to communicate with witches from other countries. She also tells him about the mysterious Grand High Witch of All the World, the feared and diabolical leader of all of the world's witches, who visits their councils in every country, each year.

"Children are rrree-volting! Vee vill vipe them all avay! Vee vill scrrrub them off the face of the earth! Vee vill flush them down the drain!"

-The Grand High Witch at the secret witches convention.
Shortly after arriving back in England, while the boy is working on the roof of his treehouse, he sees a strange woman in black staring up at him with an eerie smile and quickly realises that she is a witch. Later, while the boy is training his pet mice given to him as a consolation present by his grandmother, the hotel ballroom hosts the "Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children." The boy then sneaks into the ballroom to play with his pet mice. After seeing ladies entering the ballroom, he hides behind a screen. When they reach underneath their hair to scratch at their scalp with a gloved hand, the boy realises that this is the yearly gathering of the English witches, and that he is trapped in the now-closed room. A young woman goes on stage and removes her entire face, which is a mask. The boy realises that she is none other than the Grand High Witch herself. She expresses her displeasure at the English witches' failure to eliminate enough children. The Grand High Witch unveils her master plan: all of England's witches are to purchase sweet shops (with counterfeited money printed by her from a magical money-making machine) and give away free sweets and chocolates laced with a drop of her latest creation: "Formula 86 Delayed-Action Mouse-Maker," a magic potion which turns the consumer into a mouse at a specified time set by the potion-maker. The intent is for the children's teachers and parents to unwittingly kill the transformed children.

To demonstrate the formula's effectiveness, the Grand High Witch brings in a child named Bruno Jenkins, a rich and often greedy boy lured to the convention hall with the promise of free chocolate. She reveals that she had tricked Bruno into eating a chocolate bar laced with the formula the day before, and had set the "alarm" to go off during the meeting. The potion takes effect, transforming Bruno into a mouse before the assembled witches. Shortly after, the witches detect the narrator's presence and corner him. The Grand High Witch then pours an entire bottle of Formula 86 down his throat, and the overdose instantly turns him into a mouse. However, the transformed child retains his mentality, personality and even his voice - refusing to be lured into a mouse-trap. After tracking down Bruno, the transformed boy returns to his grandmother's hotel room and tells her what he has learned. He suggests turning the tables on the witches by slipping the potion into their evening meal. With some difficulty, he manages to get his hands on a bottle of the potion from the Grand High Witch's room.

After an attempt to return Bruno to his parents fails spectacularly (mainly due to his mother's fear of mice), the grandmother takes Bruno and the narrator to the dining hall. The narrator enters the kitchen, where he pours the potion into the green pea soup intended for the witches' dinner. On the way back from the kitchen, a cook spots the narrator and chops off part of his tail with a carving knife, before he manages to escape back to his grandmother. The witches all turn into mice within a few minutes, having had massive overdoses just like the narrator. The hotel staff and the guests all panic and unknowingly end up killing the Grand High Witch and all of England's witches.

Having returned home, the boy and his grandmother devise a plan to rid the world of witches. Impersonating the chief of police of Norway on the telephone, she discovers that the Grand High Witch was living in a castle there. They will travel to the Grand High Witch's Norwegian castle, and use the potion to change her successor and assistants into mice, then release cats to destroy them. Using the Grand High Witch's money-making machine and information on witches in various countries, they will try to eradicate them everywhere. The grandmother reveals that, as a mouse, the boy will probably only live for about another nine years, but the boy does not mind, as he does not want to outlive his grandmother (she reveals that she is also likely to live for only nine more years), as he would hate to have anyone else look after him.

Dahl based the novel on his own childhood experiences, with the character of the grandmother modelled on Sofie Dahl, the author's mother. The author was "well satisfied" by his work on The Witches, a sentiment which literary biographer Robert Carrick believes may have come from the fact that the novel was a departure from Dahl's usual "all-problem-solving finish." Dahl did not work on the novel alone; he was aided by editor Stephen Roxburgh, who helped rework The Witches. Roxburgh's advice was very extensive and covered areas such as improving plots, tightening up Dahl's writing, and re-inventing characters. Soon after its publication, the novel received compliments for its illustrations by Quentin Blake

Due to the complexity of The Witches and its departure from a typical Dahl novel, several academics have analysed the work. One perspective offered by Castleton University professor James Curtis suggests that the rejection of the novel by parents is caused by its focus on "child-hate" and Dahl's reluctance to shield children from such a reality. The scholar argues that the book showcases a treatment of children that is not actually worse than historical and modern examples; however, Dahl's determination to expose to his young readers the truth can be controversial. Despite society occasionally making progress in its treatment of children, Curtis argues that different aspects of child-hate displayed in Dahl's work are based on real world examples. As the boy's grandmother informs him, the witches usually strike children when they are alone; Curtis uses this information from the novel to connect to the historical problem of child abandonment. As children have been maimed or killed due to abandonment, children are harmed by witches in the novel when they have been left alone.

In 2012, The Witches was ranked number 81 among all-time children's novels in a survey published by School Library Journal, a monthly with a primarily US audience. It was the third of four books by Dahl among the Top 100, more than any other writer. In November 2019, the BBC listed The Witches on its list of the 100 most influential novels. In 2023, the novel was ranked by BBC at no. 61 in their poll of "The 100 greatest children's books of all time".

The novel received mainly positive reviews in the United States, but with a few warnings due to the more fear-inducing parts of it. Ann Waldron of the Philadelphia Inquirer wrote in her 1983 review that she would suggest not gifting the book to a child who is more emotional to particularly frightening scenarios. Other mixed receptions were the results of Dahl's depiction of the witches being monstrous in characterisation. Soon after its publication, the novel received compliments for its illustrations by Quentin Blake.

The Witches was criticised for being misogynistic, and banned by some libraries as a result. It appears on the American Library Association list of the 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books of 1990 to 1999, at number 22. During the editing process, the editor Stephen Roxburgh told Dahl that he was concerned about misogyny in the book. However, he dismissed these concerns by explaining he was not afraid of offending women. The feminist critic Catherine Itzin claimed that the book 'is how boys learn to become men who hate women'.

Jemma Crew of the Newstatesman considers it an "unlikely source of inspiration for feminists". The Times article "Not in Front of the Censors" suggests that the least interesting thing to a child about a witch is that they appear to look like a woman, and even offers the perspective that a witch might be a very feminist role model to a young school girl.

Questions have also been raised about the ending of the book, with some critics suggesting it might encourage suicide in children by telling them they can avoid growing up by dying.

Despite Roald Dahl having urged his publishers to not "so much as change a single comma in one of my books", in February 2023 Puffin Books, a division of Penguin Books, announced it would be re-writing portions of many of Dahl's children's novels, changing the language to, in the publisher's words, "ensure that it can continue to be enjoyed by all today." The decision was met with strong criticism from groups and public figures including authors Salman Rushdie, and Christopher Paolini, British prime minister Rishi Sunak, Queen Camilla, Kemi Badenoch, PEN America, and Brian Cox. In an interview with , author Margaret Atwood said concerning the censorship: "Good luck with Roald Dahl. You're just really going to have to replace the whole book if you want things to be nice. But this started a long time ago; it was the Disneyfication of fairy tales. What do I think of it? I'm with Chaucer, who said, 'If you don't like this tale, turn over the page and read something else.'" Dahl's publishers in the United States, France, and the Netherlands announced they had declined to incorporate the changes.

In The Witches, more than 50 changes were made, including major alterations to the descriptions of the witches' baldness and wearing of wigs (including adding an additional sentence not found in the original work, defending the wearing of wigs by women), removing many references to women's appearances, removing grotesque or insulting words like pimply, filthy, and hag, and removing instances of the word fat (e.g., changing "fat little brown mouse" to "little brown mouse").

'Don't be foolish,' my grandmother said. 'You can't go round pulling the hair of every lady you meet, even if she is wearing gloves. Just you try it and see what happens.'

'Don't be foolish,' my grandmother said. 'Besides, there are plenty of other reasons why women might wear wigs and there is certainly nothing wrong with that.'

In 1990, The Witches was adapted into a film starring Anjelica Huston and Rowan Atkinson, directed by Nicolas Roeg, co-produced by Jim Henson, and distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures. In the film, the boy is American and named Luke Eveshim, his grandmother is named Helga Eveshim, and The Grand High Witch is named Evangeline Ernst.

The most notable difference from the book is that the boy is restored to human form at the end of the story by the Grand High Witch's assistant (a character who does not appear in the book), who had renounced her former evil. Dahl regarded the film as "utterly appalling".

Another film adaptation, co-written and directed by Robert Zemeckis and starring Anne Hathaway as the Grand High Witch, was released in October 2020 on HBO Max, after it was removed from its original release date due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The most notable difference from the book is that this adaptation takes place in 1968 Alabama, and the protagonist is an African-American boy who is called "Hero Boy". The adaptation also stays true to the book's ending rather than the 1990 film, having the protagonist stay a mouse at the end.

The book has been recorded three times:

In 2008, BBC Radio 4's Classic Serial broadcast a two-part dramatisation of the novel by Lucy Catherine, directed by Claire Grove. The cast included Margaret Tyzack as the Grandmother, Toby Jones as the Narrator, Ryan Watson as the Boy, Jordan Clarke as Bruno and Amanda Lawrence as the Grand High Witch.

A stage adaptation by David Wood was first presented at the Lyceum Theatre, Sheffield in 1992, following a tour and a Christmas season at the Duke of York's Theatre in London's West End. The adaptation has since been performed in numerous productions in both London and across the UK.

The book was adapted into an opera by Norwegian composer Marcus Paus and his father, Ole Paus, who wrote the libretto. It premiered in 2008.

A musical adaptation was originally announced to be in development at the National Theatre, London for a 2018 Festive season premiere. The musical premiered at the National Theatre in November 2023, directed by Lyndsey Turner with book and lyrics by Lucy Kirkwood and music and lyrics by Dave Malloy, and is projected to run until 27 January 2024.

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The Witches is a 1983 children's novel by British author Roald Dahl. A dark fantasy, the story is set partly in Norway and partly in England, and features the experiences of a young English boy and his Norwegian grandmother in a world where child-hating societies of witches secretly exist in every country.

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With many awards including a National Book award, the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and two National Endowment for the Arts fellowship, as well as being a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the National Books Critics Circle Award. A group of soldiers during the Vietnam War are being followed in the third person point of view as the reader understands each individual and what personal items they carry in order to find solace in the war. The mood of the book is often found to be sad as not only the past is being understood, but so is the present as the tragedies of war unfold.

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Providing insight into the lives of three children during the Irish famine a connection through the characters are formed. While the reader may not understand the history with the Irish famine, they are able to follow the plot and understand the conflict while forming a bond with characters they are able to relate to. The style and language transports the reader into an uncertain time by following the way of living as well as forms of speech between the economical classes.

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Under the Hawthorn Tree is a children's historical novel by Marita Conlon-McKenna, the first in her Children of the Famine trilogy set at the time of the Great Famine in Ireland. It was published by the O'Brien Press in May 1990. It was adapted for television in 1999.

The novel tells the story of three siblings, Mary Ellen (Eily), Michael and Margaret (Peggy) O'Driscoll, who live in a small cottage in their home district of Duneen. Ireland is in the height of The Great Hunger. Blight has destroyed the staple crop. Ten month old Bridget dies of famine fever and is buried under the hawthorn tree in the garden: in Irish mythology, the hawthorn is linked with the otherworld.

Their father has gone to find work on the famine roads, and the children and their mother struggle each day, barely getting enough food to survive. Their mother ends up selling all of her belongings except for the clothes on their backs. Desperate and worried that she won't be able to feed her children alone, she leaves to search for her husband. After waiting for their parents for a few days, the three siblings are forced to leave for the workhouse. Eily makes a decision; they would make the long journey to find Nano and Lena, the aunts from their mother's stories. The journey ahead is dangerous and the children are weak, but they are determined to make it to Castletaggart where their aunts are living and running a bakery.

Under the Hawthorn Tree received the Children's and Young Adult's Book Award for Older Reader Category in 1991.

Under the Hawthorn Tree was filmed for Channel 4 and screened as a four-part series in March 1999.

Wildflower Girl, the second part of the trilogy, in which Peggy goes to America

Fields of Home, the third part of the trilogy, which follows all three siblings; Eily and Michael at home in Ireland, and Peggy as she heads out West in the US.

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Under the Hawthorn Tree (novel) - Wikipedia

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Under the Hawthorn Tree is a children's historical novel by Marita Conlon-McKenna, the first in her Children of the Famine trilogy set at the time of the Great Famine in Ireland. It was published by the O'Brien Press in May 1990. It was adapted for television in 1999.

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Able to follow the four complex stories of four siblings as they escape the reality of their orphaned reality; the reader is able to comprehend the character's goals, and what traits drive them and what they do in Narnia. The depiction of the illustrations throughout the book create a fantasy world that is filled with land, kingdoms, and other characters that desire their own achievements including the antagonist. A highlighted them that continues throughout the series is faith, trust, and redemption, but not without the false qualities of deception.

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The Chronicles of Narnia is a series of seven portal fantasy novels by British author C. S. Lewis. Illustrated by Pauline Baynes and originally published between 1950 and 1956, The Chronicles of Narnia has been adapted for radio, television, the stage, film and video games. The series is set in the fictional realm of Narnia, a fantasy world of magic, mythical beasts and talking animals. It narrates the adventures of various children who play central roles in the unfolding history of the Narnian world. Except in The Horse and His Boy, the protagonists are all children from the real world who are magically transported to Narnia, where they are sometimes called upon by the lion Aslan to protect Narnia from evil. The books span the entire history of Narnia, from its creation in The Magician's Nephew to its eventual destruction in The Last Battle.

The Chronicles of Narnia is considered a classic of children's literature and is Lewis's best-selling work, having sold 120 million copies in 47 languages.

Although Lewis originally conceived what would become The Chronicles of Narnia in 1939 (the picture of a Faun with parcels in a snowy wood has a history dating to 1914), he did not finish writing the first book The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe until 1949. The Magician's Nephew, the penultimate book to be published, but the last to be written, was completed in 1954. Lewis did not write the books in the order in which they were originally published, nor were they published in their current chronological order of presentation. The original illustrator, Pauline Baynes, created pen and ink drawings for the Narnia books that are still used in the editions published today. Lewis was awarded the 1956 Carnegie Medal for The Last Battle, the final book in the saga. The series was first referred to as The Chronicles of Narnia by fellow children's author Roger Lancelyn Green in March 1951, after he had read and discussed with Lewis his recently completed fourth book The Silver Chair, originally entitled Night under Narnia.

Lewis described the origin of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe in an essay entitled "It All Began with a Picture":

The Lion all began with a picture of a Faun carrying an umbrella and parcels in a snowy wood. This picture had been in my mind since I was about sixteen. Then one day, when I was about forty, I said to myself: "Let's try to make a story about it."

Shortly before the start of World War II, many children were evacuated to the English countryside in anticipation of attacks on London and other major urban areas by Nazi Germany. As a result, on 2 September 1939, three school girls named Margaret, Mary and Katherine came to live at The Kilns in Risinghurst, Lewis's home three miles east of Oxford city centre. Lewis later suggested that the experience gave him a new appreciation of children and in late September he began a children's story on an odd sheet of paper which has survived as part of another manuscript:

This book is about four children whose names were Ann, Martin, Rose and Peter. But it is most about Peter who was the youngest. They all had to go away from London suddenly because of Air Raids, and because Father, who was in the Army, had gone off to the War and Mother was doing some kind of war work. They were sent to stay with a kind of relation of Mother's who was a very old professor who lived all by himself in the country.

In "It All Began with a Picture" C. S. Lewis continues:

At first, I had very little idea how the story would go. But then suddenly Aslan came bounding into it. I think I had been having a good many dreams of lions about that time. Apart from that, I don't know where the Lion came from or why he came. But once he was there, he pulled the whole story together, and soon he pulled the six other Narnian stories in after him.

Although Lewis pleaded ignorance about the source of his inspiration for Aslan, Jared Lobdell, digging into Lewis's history to explore the making of the series, suggests Charles Williams's 1931 novel The Place of the Lion as a likely influence.

The manuscript for The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe was complete by the end of March 1949.

The name Narnia is based on Narni, Italy, written in Latin as Narnia. Green wrote:

When Walter Hooper asked where he found the word 'Narnia', Lewis showed him Murray's Small Classical Atlas, ed. G.B. Grundy (1904), which he acquired when he was reading the classics with Mr [William T.] Kirkpatrick at Great Bookham [1914-1917]. On plate 8 of the Atlas is a map of ancient Italy. Lewis had underscored the name of a little town called Narnia, simply because he liked the sound of it. Narnia - or ' Narni' in Italian - is in Umbria, halfway between Rome and Assisi.

The Chronicles of Narnia's seven books have been in continuous publication since 1956, selling over 100 million copies in 47 languages and with editions in Braille.

The first five books were originally published in the United Kingdom by Geoffrey Bles. The first edition of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe was released in London on 16 October 1950. Although three more books, Prince Caspian, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader and The Horse and His Boy, were already complete, they were not released immediately at that time, but instead appeared (along with The Silver Chair) one at a time in each of the subsequent years (1951-1954). The last two books ( The Magician's Nephew and The Last Battle) were published in the United Kingdom originally by The Bodley Head in 1955 and 1956.

In the United States, the publication rights were first owned by Macmillan Publishers, and later by HarperCollins. The two issued both hardcover and paperback editions of the series during their tenure as publishers, while at the same time Scholastic, Inc. produced paperback versions for sale primarily through direct mail order, book clubs, and book fairs. HarperCollins also published several one-volume collected editions containing the full text of the series. As noted below (see Reading order), the first American publisher, Macmillan, numbered the books in publication sequence, whereas HarperCollins, at the suggestion of Lewis's stepson, opted to use the series' internal chronological order when they won the rights to it in 1994. Scholastic switched the numbering of its paperback editions in 1994 to mirror that of HarperCollins.

The seven books that make up The Chronicles of Narnia are presented here in order of original publication date:

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, completed by the end of March 1949 and published by Geoffrey Bles in the United Kingdom on 16 October 1950, tells the story of four ordinary children: Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy Pevensie, Londoners who were evacuated to the English countryside following the outbreak of World War II. They discover a wardrobe in Professor Digory Kirke's house that leads to the magical land of Narnia. The Pevensie children help Aslan, a talking lion, save Narnia from the evil White Witch, who has reigned for a century of perpetual winter with no Christmas. The children become kings and queens of this new-found land and establish the Golden Age of Narnia, leaving a legacy to be rediscovered in later books.

Completed after Christmas 1949 and published on 15 October 1951, Prince Caspian: The Return to Narnia tells the story of the Pevensie children's second trip to Narnia, a year (on Earth) after their first. They are drawn back by the power of Susan's horn, blown by Prince Caspian to summon help in his hour of need. Narnia as they knew it is no more, as 1,300 years have passed, their castle is in ruins, and all Narnians have retreated so far within themselves that only Aslan's magic can wake them. Caspian has fled into the woods to escape his uncle, Miraz, who has usurped the throne. The children set out once again to save Narnia.

Written between January and February 1950 and published on 15 September 1952, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader sees Edmund and Lucy Pevensie, along with their priggish cousin, Eustace Scrubb, return to Narnia, three Narnian years (and one Earth year) after their last departure. Once there, they join Caspian's voyage on the ship Dawn Treader to find the seven lords who were banished when Miraz took over the throne. This perilous journey brings them face to face with many wonders and dangers as they sail toward Aslan's country at the edge of the world.

Completed at the beginning of March 1951 and published 7 September 1953, The Silver Chair is the first Narnia book not involving the Pevensie children, focusing instead on Eustace. Several months after The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, Aslan calls Eustace back to Narnia along with his classmate Jill Pole. They are given four signs to aid them in the search for Prince Caspian's son Rilian, who disappeared ten years earlier on a quest to avenge his mother's death. Fifty years have passed in Narnia since the events from The Voyage of the Dawn Treader; Eustace is still a child, but Caspian, barely an adult in the previous book, is now an old man. Eustace and Jill, with the help of Puddleglum the Marsh-wiggle, face danger and betrayal on their quest to find Rilian.

Begun in March and completed at the end of July 1950, The Horse and His Boy was published on 6 September 1954. The story takes place during the reign of the Pevensies in Narnia, an era which begins and ends in the last chapter of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. The protagonists, a young boy named Shasta and a talking horse named Bree, both begin in bondage in the country of Calormen. By "chance", they meet and plan their return to Narnia and freedom. Along the way they meet Aravis and her talking horse Hwin, who are also fleeing to Narnia.

Completed in February 1954 and published by Bodley Head in London on 2 May 1955, The Magician's Nephew serves as a prequel and presents Narnia's origin story: how Aslan created the world and how evil first entered it. Digory Kirke and his friend Polly Plummer stumble into different worlds by experimenting with magic rings given to them by Digory's uncle. In the dying world of Charn they awaken Queen Jadis, and another world turns out to be the beginnings of the Narnian world (where Jadis later becomes the White Witch). The story is set in 1900, when Digory was a 12-year-old boy. He is a middle-aged professor by the time he hosts the Pevensie children in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe 40 years later.

Completed in March 1953 and published 4 September 1956, The Last Battle chronicles the end of the world of Narnia. Approximately two hundred Narnia years after the events of The Silver Chair, Jill and Eustace return to save Narnia from the ape Shift, who tricks Puzzle the donkey into impersonating the lion Aslan, thereby precipitating a showdown between the Calormenes and King Tirian. This leads to the end of Narnia as it is known throughout the series, but allows Aslan to lead the characters to the "true" Narnia.

Fans of the series often have strong opinions over the order in which the books should be read. The issue revolves around the placement of The Magician's Nephew and The Horse and His Boy in the series. Both are set significantly earlier in the story of Narnia than their publication order and fall somewhat outside the main story arc connecting the others. The reading order of the other five books is not disputed.

A 1970 Collier-Macmillan edition paperback boxed set (cover art by Roger Hane), where the books are presented in order of original publication

When first published, the books were not numbered. The first American publisher, Macmillan, enumerated them according to their original publication order, while some early British editions specified the internal chronological order. When HarperCollins took over the series rights in 1994, they adopted the internal chronological order. To make the case for the internal chronological order, Lewis's stepson, Douglas Gresham, quoted Lewis's 1957 reply to a letter from an American fan who was having an argument with his mother about the order:

I think I agree with your [chronological] order for reading the books more than with your mother's. The series was not planned beforehand as she thinks. When I wrote The Lion I did not know I was going to write any more. Then I wrote P. Caspian as a sequel and still didn't think there would be any more, and when I had done The Voyage I felt quite sure it would be the last, but I found I was wrong. So perhaps it does not matter very much in which order anyone read them. I'm not even sure that all the others were written in the same order in which they were published.

In the 2005 HarperCollins adult editions of the books, the publisher cites this letter to assert Lewis's preference for the numbering they adopted by including this notice on the copyright page:

Although The Magician's Nephew was written several years after C. S. Lewis first began The Chronicles of Narnia, he wanted it to be read as the first book in the series. HarperCollins is happy to present these books in the order in which Professor Lewis preferred.

Paul Ford cites several scholars who have weighed in against this view, and continues, "most scholars disagree with this decision and find it the least faithful to Lewis's deepest intentions". Scholars and readers who appreciate the original order believe that Lewis was simply being gracious to his youthful correspondent and that he could have changed the books' order in his lifetime had he so desired. They maintain that much of the magic of Narnia comes from the way the world is gradually presented in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe - that the mysterious wardrobe, as a narrative device, is a much better introduction to Narnia than The Magician's Nephew, where the word "Narnia" appears in the first paragraph as something already familiar to the reader. Moreover, they say, it is clear from the texts themselves that The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe was intended to be read first. When Aslan is first mentioned in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, for example, the narrator says that "None of the children knew who Aslan was, any more than you do" - which is nonsensical if one has already read The Magician's Nephew. Other similar textual examples are also cited.

Doris Meyer, author of C. S. Lewis in Context and Bareface: A guide to C. S. Lewis, writes that rearranging the stories chronologically "lessens the impact of the individual stories" and "obscures the literary structures as a whole". Peter Schakel devotes an entire chapter to this topic in his book Imagination and the Arts in C. S. Lewis: Journeying to Narnia and Other Worlds, and in Reading with the Heart: The Way into Narnia he writes:

The only reason to read The Magician's Nephew first [...] is for the chronological order of events, and that, as every story teller knows, is quite unimportant as a reason. Often the early events in a sequence have a greater impact or effect as a flashback, told after later events which provide background and establish perspective. So it is [...] with the Chronicles. The artistry, the archetypes, and the pattern of Christian thought all make it preferable to read the books in the order of their publication.

Aslan, the Great Lion, is the titular lion of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, and his role in Narnia is developed throughout the remaining books. He is also the only character to appear in all seven books. Aslan is a talking lion, the King of Beasts, son of the Emperor-Over-the-Sea. He is a wise, compassionate, magical authority (both temporal and spiritual) who serves as mysterious and benevolent guide to the human children who visit, as well as being the guardian and saviour of Narnia. C. S. Lewis described Aslan as an alternative version of Jesus as the form in which he may have appeared in an alternative reality. In his book , C.S. Lewis argues that the possible existence of other worlds with other sentient life-forms should not deter or detract from being Christian:

[The universe] may be full of lives that have been redeemed in modes suitable to their condition, of which we can form no conception. It may be full of lives that have been redeemed in the very same mode as our own. It may be full of things quite other than life in which God is interested though we are not.

The four Pevensie siblings are the main human protagonists of The Chronicles of Narnia. Varying combinations of some or all of them appear in five of the seven novels. They are introduced in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (although their surname is not revealed until The Voyage of the Dawn Treader), and eventually become Kings and Queens of Narnia reigning as a tetrarchy. Although introduced in the series as children, the siblings grow up into adults while reigning in Narnia. They go back to being children once they get back to their own world, but feature as adults in The Horse and His Boy during their Narnian reign.

All four appear in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe and Prince Caspian; in the latter, however, Aslan tells Peter and Susan that they will not return, as they are getting too old. Susan, Lucy, and Edmund appear in The Horse and His Boy-Peter is said to be away fighting giants on the other side of Narnia. Lucy and Edmund appear in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, where Aslan tells them, too, that they are getting too old. Peter, Edmund, and Lucy appear as Kings and Queens in Aslan's Country in The Last Battle; Susan does not. Asked by a child in 1958 if he would please write another book entitled "Susan of Narnia" so that the entire Pevensie family would be reunited, C. S. Lewis replied: "I am so glad you like the Narnian books and it was nice of you to write and tell me. There's no use just asking me to write more. When stories come into my mind I have to write them, and when they don't I can't!..."

Lucy is the youngest of the four Pevensie siblings. Of all the Pevensie children, Lucy is the closest to Aslan, and of all the human characters who visit Narnia, Lucy is perhaps the one who believes in Narnia the most. In The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, she initiates the story by entering Narnia through the wardrobe, and (with Susan) witnesses Aslan's execution and resurrection. She is named Queen Lucy the Valiant. In Prince Caspian, she is the first to see Aslan when he comes to guide them. In The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, it is Lucy who breaks the spell of invisibility on the Dufflepuds. As an adult in The Horse and His Boy, she helps fight the Calormenes at Anvard. Although a minor character in The Last Battle, much of the closing chapter is seen from her point of view.

Edmund is the second child to enter Narnia in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, where he falls under the White Witch's spell from eating the Turkish delight she gives him. Instantiating the book's Christian theme of betrayal, repentance, and subsequent redemption via blood sacrifice, he betrays his siblings to the White Witch, but quickly realizes her true nature and her evil intentions, and is redeemed by the sacrifice of Aslan's life. He is named King Edmund the Just. In Prince Caspian and The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, he supports Lucy; in The Horse and His Boy, he leads the Narnian delegation to Calormen and, later, the Narnian army breaking the siege at Anvard.

In The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, Susan accompanies Lucy to see Aslan die and rise again. She is named Queen Susan the Gentle. In Prince Caspian, however, she is the last of the four to believe and follow Lucy when the latter is called by Aslan to guide them. As an adult queen in The Horse and His Boy, she is courted by Prince Rabadash of Calormen, but refuses his marriage proposal, and his angry response leads the story to its climax. In The Last Battle, she has stopped believing in Narnia and remembers it only as a childhood game, though Lewis mentioned in a letter to a fan that he thought she may eventually believe again: "The books don't tell us what happened to Susan... But there is plenty of time for her to mend, and perhaps she will get to Aslan's country in the end-in her own way."

Peter is the eldest of the Pevensies. In The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, he kills Maugrim, a talking wolf, to save Susan, and leads the Narnian army against the White Witch. Aslan names him High King, and he is known as Peter the Magnificent. In Prince Caspian, he duels the usurper King Miraz to restore Caspian's throne. In The Last Battle, it is Peter whom Aslan entrusts with the duty of closing the door on Narnia for the final time.

Eustace Clarence Scrubb is a cousin of the Pevensies, and a classmate of Jill Pole at their school Experiment House. He is portrayed at first as a brat and a bully, but comes to improve his nasty behaviour when his greed turns him into a dragon for a while. His distress at having to live as a dragon causes him to reflect upon how horrible he has been, and his subsequent improved character is rewarded when Aslan changes him back into a boy. In the later books, Eustace comes across as a much nicer person, although he is still rather grumpy and argumentative. Nonetheless, he becomes a hero along with Jill Pole when the pair succeed in freeing the lost Prince Rilian from the clutches of an evil witch. He appears in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, The Silver Chair, and The Last Battle.

Jill Pole is a schoolmate of Eustace Scrubb. She appears in The Silver Chair, where she is the viewpoint character for most of the action, and returns in The Last Battle. In The Silver Chair, Eustace introduces her to the Narnian world, where Aslan gives her the task of memorising a series of signs that will help her and Eustace on their quest to find Caspian's lost son. In The Last Battle, she and Eustace accompany King Tirian in his ill-fated defence of Narnia against the Calormenes.

Digory Kirke is the nephew referred to in the title of The Magician's Nephew. He first appears as a minor character in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, known only as "The Professor", who hosts the Pevensie children when they are evacuated from London and defends Lucy's story of having found a country in the back of the wardrobe. In The Magician's Nephew, the young Digory, thanks to his uncle's magical experimentation, inadvertently brings Jadis from her dying homeworld of Charn to the newly created world of Narnia; to fix his mistake Aslan sends him to fetch a magical apple which will protect Narnia and heal his dying mother. He returns in The Last Battle.

Polly Plummer appears in The Magician's Nephew and The Last Battle. She is the next-door neighbour of the young Digory Kirke. She is tricked by a wicked magician (who is Digory's uncle) into touching a magic ring which transports her to the Wood between the Worlds and leaves her there stranded. The wicked uncle persuades Digory to follow her with a second magic ring that has the power to bring her back. This sets up the pair's adventures into other worlds, and they witness the creation of Narnia as described in The Magician's Nephew. She appears at the end of The Last Battle.

Tumnus the Faun, called "Mr Tumnus" by Lucy, is featured prominently in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and also appears in The Horse and His Boy and The Last Battle. He is the first creature Lucy meets in Narnia, as well as the first Narnian to be introduced in the series; he invites her to his home with the intention of betraying her to Jadis, but quickly repents and befriends her. In The Horse and His Boy, he devises the Narnian delegation's plan of escape from Calormen. He returns for a brief dialogue at the end of The Last Battle. A mental image of a faun in a snowy wood was Lewis's initial inspiration for the entire series; Tumnus is that faun.

Caspian is first introduced in the book titled after him, as the young nephew and heir of King Miraz. Fleeing potential assassination by his uncle, he becomes leader of the Old Narnian rebellion against the Telmarine occupation. With the help of the Pevensies, he defeats Miraz's army and becomes King Caspian X of Narnia. In The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, he leads an expedition out into the eastern ocean to find Seven Lords, whom Miraz had exiled, and ultimately to reach Aslan's Country. In The Silver Chair, he makes two brief appearances as an old, dying man, but at the end is resurrected in Aslan's Country.

Trumpkin the Dwarf is the narrator of several chapters of Prince Caspian; he is one of Caspian's rescuers and a leading figure in the "Old Narnian" rebellion, and accompanies the Pevensie children from the ruins of Cair Paravel to the Old Narnian camp. In The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, we learn that Caspian has made him his Regent in Narnia while he is away at sea, and he appears briefly in this role (now elderly and very deaf) in The Silver Chair.

Reepicheep the Mouse is the leader of the Talking Mice of Narnia in Prince Caspian. Utterly fearless, infallibly courteous, and obsessed with honour, he is badly wounded in the final battle but healed by Lucy and Aslan. In The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, his role is greatly expanded; he becomes a visionary as well as a warrior, and ultimately his willing self-exile to Aslan's Country breaks the enchantment on the last three of the Lost Lords, thus achieving the final goal of the quest. Lewis identified Reepicheep as "specially" exemplifying the latter book's theme of "the spiritual life". Reepicheep makes one final cameo appearance at the end of The Last Battle, in Aslan's Country.

Puddleglum the Marsh-wiggle guides Eustace and Jill on their quest in The Silver Chair. Though always comically pessimistic, he provides the voice of reason and as such intervenes critically in the climactic enchantment scene.

Shasta, later known as Cor of Archenland, is the principal character in The Horse and His Boy. Born the eldest son and heir of King Lune of Archenland, and elder twin of Prince Corin, Cor was kidnapped as an infant and raised as a fisherman's son in Calormen. With the help of the talking horse Bree, Shasta escapes from being sold into slavery and makes his way northward to Narnia. On the journey his companion Aravis learns of an imminent Calormene surprise attack on Archenland; Shasta warns the Archenlanders in time and discovers his true identity and original name. At the end of the story he marries Aravis and becomes King of Archenland.

Aravis, daughter of Kidrash Tarkaan, is a character in The Horse and His Boy. Escaping a forced betrothal to the loathsome Ahoshta, she joins Shasta on his journey and inadvertently overhears a plot by Rabadash, crown prince of Calormen, to invade Archenland. She later marries Shasta, now known as Prince Cor, and becomes queen of Archenland at his side.

Bree (Breehy-hinny-brinny-hoohy-hah) is Shasta's mount and mentor in The Horse and His Boy. A Talking Horse of Narnia, he wandered into Calormen as a foal and was captured. He first appears as a Calormene nobleman's war-horse; when the nobleman buys Shasta as a slave, Bree organises and carries out their joint escape. Though friendly, he is also vain and a braggart until his encounter with Aslan late in the story.

The last King of Narnia is the viewpoint character for much of The Last Battle. Having rashly killed a Calormene for mistreating a Narnian Talking Horse, he is imprisoned by the villainous ape Shift but released by Eustace and Jill. Together they fight faithfully to the last and are welcomed into Aslan's Kingdom.

Jadis, the White Witch

Jadis, commonly known during her rule of Narnia as the White Witch, is the main villain of The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe and The Magician's Nephew-the only antagonist to appear in more than one Narnia book. In The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, she is the witch responsible for the freezing of Narnia resulting in the Hundred Year Winter; she turns her enemies into statues and kills Aslan on the Stone Table, but is killed by him in battle after his resurrection. In The Magician's Nephew, she is wakened from a magical sleep by Digory in the dead world of Charn and inadvertently brought to Victorian London before being transported to Narnia, where she steals an apple to grant her the gift of immortality.

King Miraz is the lead villain of Prince Caspian. Prior to the book's opening he has killed King Caspian IX, father of the titular Prince Caspian, and usurped his throne as king of the Telmarine colonizers in Narnia. He raises Caspian as his heir, but seeks to kill him after his own son is born. As the story progresses he leads the Telmarine war against the Old Narnian rebellion; he is defeated in single combat by Peter and then murdered by one of his own lords.

The Lady of the Green Kirtle is the lead villain of The Silver Chair, and is also referred to in that book as "the Queen of Underland" or simply as "the Witch". She rules an underground kingdom through magical mind-control. Prior to the events of The Silver Chair, she has murdered Caspian's Queen and then seduced and abducted his son Prince Rilian. She encounters the protagonists on their quest and sends them astray. Confronted by them later, she attempts to enslave them magically; when that fails, she attacks them in the form of a serpent and is killed.

Prince Rabadash, heir to the throne of Calormen, is the primary antagonist of The Horse and His Boy. Hot-headed, arrogant, and entitled, he brings Queen Susan of Narnia-along with a small retinue of Narnians, including King Edmund-to Calormen in the hope that Susan will marry him. When the Narnians realize that Rabadash may force Susan to accept his marriage proposal, they spirit Susan out of Calormen by ship. Incensed, Rabadash launches a surprise attack on Archenland with the ultimate intention of raiding Narnia and taking Susan captive. His plan is foiled when Shasta and Aravis warn the Archenlanders of his impending strike. After being captured by Edmund, Rabadash blasphemes against Aslan. Aslan then temporarily transforms him into a donkey as punishment.

Shift is the most prominent villain of The Last Battle. He is an elderly Talking Ape-Lewis does not specify what kind of ape, but Pauline Baynes' illustrations depict him as a chimpanzee. He persuades the naïve donkey Puzzle to pretend to be Aslan (wearing a lion-skin) in order to seize control of Narnia, and proceeds to cut down the forests, enslave the other Talking Beasts, and invite the Calormenes to invade. He loses control of the situation due to over-indulging in alcohol, and is eventually swallowed up by the evil Calormene god Tash.

A map by David Bedell of the fictional universe of the Narnian world

The Chronicles of Narnia describes the world in which Narnia exists as one major landmass encircled by an ocean. Narnia's capital sits on the eastern edge of the landmass on the shores of the Great Eastern Ocean. This ocean contains the islands explored in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. On the main landmass Lewis places the countries of Narnia, Archenland, Calormen, and Telmar, along with a variety of other areas that are not described as countries. The author also provides glimpses of more fantastic locations that exist in and around the main world of Narnia, including an edge and an underworld.

Lewis's life

Lewis's early life has parallels with The Chronicles of Narnia. At the age of seven, he moved with his family to a large house on the edge of Belfast. Its long hallways and empty rooms inspired Lewis and his brother to invent make-believe worlds whilst exploring their home, an activity reflected in Lucy's discovery of Narnia in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Like Caspian and Rilian, Lewis lost his mother at an early age, spending much of his youth in English boarding schools similar to those attended by the Pevensie children, Eustace Scrubb, and Jill Pole. During World War II many children were evacuated from London and other urban areas because of German air raids. Some of these children, including one named Lucy (Lewis's goddaughter) stayed with him at his home The Kilns near Oxford, just as the Pevensies stayed with The Professor in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.

Drew Trotter, president of the Center for Christian Study, noted that the producers of the film The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe felt that the books' plots adhere to the archetypal " monomyth" pattern as detailed in Joseph Campbell's The Hero with a Thousand Faces.

Lewis was widely read in medieval Celtic literature, an influence reflected throughout the books, and most strongly in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. The entire book imitates one of the immrama, a type of traditional Old Irish tale that combines elements of Christianity and Irish mythology to tell the story of a hero's sea journey to the Otherworld.

Michael Ward's 2008 book Planet Narnia proposes that each of the seven books related to one of the seven moving heavenly bodies or "planets" known in the Middle Ages according to the Ptolemaic geocentric model of cosmology (a theme to which Lewis returned habitually throughout his work). At that time, each of these heavenly bodies was believed to have certain attributes, and Ward contends that these attributes were deliberately but subtly used by Lewis to furnish elements of the stories of each book:

In The Lion [the child protagonists] become monarchs under sovereign Jove; in Prince Caspian they harden under strong Mars; in The "Dawn Treader" they drink light under searching Sol; in The Silver Chair they learn obedience under subordinate Luna; in The Horse and His Boy they come to love poetry under eloquent Mercury; in The Magician's Nephew they gain life-giving fruit under fertile Venus; and in The Last Battle they suffer and die under chilling Saturn.

Lewis's interest in the literary symbolism of medieval and Renaissance astrology is more overtly referenced in other works such as his study of medieval cosmology The Discarded Image, and in his early poetry as well as in Space Trilogy. Narnia scholar Paul F. Ford finds Ward's assertion that Lewis intended The Chronicles to be an embodiment of medieval astrology implausible, though Ford addresses an earlier (2003) version of Ward's thesis (also called Planet Narnia, published in the Times Literary Supplement). Ford argues that Lewis did not start with a coherent plan for the books, but Ward's book answers this by arguing that the astrological associations grew in the writing:

Jupiter was... [Lewis's] favourite planet, part of the "habitual furniture" of his mind... The Lion was thus the first example of that "idea that he wanted to try out". Prince Caspian and The "Dawn Treader" naturally followed because Mars and Sol were both already connected in his mind with the merits of the Alexander technique.... at some point after commencing The Horse and His Boy he resolved to treat all seven planets, for seven such treatments of his idea would mean that he had "worked it out to the full".

A quantitative analysis on the imagery in the different books of The Chronicles gives mixed support to Ward's thesis: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, The Silver Chair, The Horse and His Boy, and The Magician's Nephew do indeed employ concepts associated with, respectively, Sol, Luna, Mercury, and Venus, far more often than chance would predict, but The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, Prince Caspian, and The Last Battle fall short of statistical correlation with their proposed planets.

George MacDonald's Phantastes (1858) influenced the structure and setting of "The Chronicles". It was a work that was " a great balm to the soul".

Plato was an undeniable influence on Lewis's writing of The Chronicles. Most clearly, Digory explicitly invokes Plato's name at the end of The Last Battle, to explain how the old version of Narnia is but a shadow of the newly revealed "true" Narnia. Plato's influence is also apparent in The Silver Chair when the Queen of the Underland attempts to convince the protagonists that the surface world is not real. She echoes the logic of Plato's Cave by comparing the sun to a nearby lamp, arguing that reality is only that which is perceived in the immediate physical vicinity.

The White Witch in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe shares many features, both of appearance and character, with the villainous Duessa of Edmund Spenser's Faerie Queene, a work Lewis studied in detail. Like Duessa, she falsely styles herself Queen; she leads astray the erring Edmund with false temptations; she turns people into stone as Duessa turns them into trees. Both villains wear opulent robes and deck their conveyances out with bells. In The Magician's Nephew Jadis takes on echoes of Satan from John Milton's Paradise Lost: she climbs over the wall of the paradisal garden in contempt of the command to enter only by the gate, and proceeds to tempt Digory as Satan tempted Eve, with lies and half-truths. Similarly, the Lady of the Green Kirtle in The Silver Chair recalls both the snake-woman Errour in The Faerie Queene and Satan's transformation into a snake in Paradise Lost.

Lewis read Edith Nesbit's children's books as a child and was greatly fond of them. He described The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe around the time of its completion as "a children's book in the tradition of E. Nesbit". The Magician's Nephew in particular bears strong resemblances to Nesbit's The Story of the Amulet (1906). This novel focuses on four children living in London who discover a magic amulet. Their father is away and their mother is ill, as is the case with Digory. They manage to transport the queen of ancient Babylon to London and she is the cause of a riot; likewise, Polly and Digory transport Queen Jadis to London, sparking a very similar incident.

Marsha Daigle-Williamson argues that Dante's Divine Comedy had a significant impact on Lewis's writings. In the Narnia series, she identifies this influence as most apparent in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader and The Silver Chair. Daigle-Williamson identifies the plot of The Voyage of the Dawn Treader as a Dantean journey with a parallel structure and similar themes. She likewise draws numerous connections between The Silver Chair and the events of Dante's .

Colin Duriez, writing on the shared elements found in both Lewis's and J. R. R. Tolkien's works, highlights the thematic similarities between Tolkien's poem Imram and Lewis's The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.

The Chronicles of Narnia is considered a classic of children's literature.

The Chronicles of Narnia has been a significant influence on both adult and children's fantasy literature in the post-World War II era. In 1976, the scholar Susan Cornell Poskanzer praised Lewis for his "strangely powerful fantasies". Poskanzer argued that children could relate to Narnia books because the heroes and heroines were realistic characters, each with their own distinctive voice and personality. Furthermore, the protagonists become powerful kings and queens who decide the fate of kingdoms, while the adults in the Narnia books tended to be buffoons, which by inverting the normal order of things was pleasing to many youngsters. However, Poskanzer criticized Lewis for what she regarded as scenes of gratuitous violence, which she felt were upsetting to children. Poskanzer also noted Lewis presented his Christian message subtly enough as to avoid boring children with overt sermonizing.

Examples include:

Philip Pullman's fantasy series, His Dark Materials, is seen as a response to The Chronicles. Pullman is a self-described atheist who wholly rejects the spiritual themes that permeate The Chronicles, yet his series nonetheless addresses many of the same issues and introduces some similar character types, including talking animals. In another parallel, the first books in each series - Pullman's Northern Lights and The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe - both open with a young girl hiding in a wardrobe.

Bill Willingham's comic book series makes reference at least twice to a king called "The Great Lion", a thinly veiled reference to Aslan. The series avoids explicitly referring to any characters or works that are not in the public domain.

The novel Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson has Leslie, one of the main characters, reveal to Jesse her love of Lewis's books, subsequently lending him The Chronicles of Narnia so that he can learn how to behave like a king. Her book also features the island name "Terabithia", which sounds similar to Terebinthia, a Narnian island that appears in Prince Caspian and The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. Katherine Paterson herself acknowledges that Terabithia is likely to be derived from Terebinthia:

I thought I had made it up. Then, rereading The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C. S. Lewis, I realized that I had probably gotten it from the island of Terebinthia in that book. However, Lewis probably got that name from the terebinth tree in the Bible, so both of us pinched from somewhere else, probably unconsciously."

Science-fiction author Greg Egan's short story "Oracle" depicts a parallel universe in which an author nicknamed Jack (Lewis's nickname) has written novels about the fictional "Kingdom of Nesica", and whose wife is dying of cancer, paralleling the death of Lewis's wife Joy Davidman. Several Narnian allegories are also used to explore issues of religion and faith versus science and knowledge.

Lev Grossman's New York Times best-seller The Magicians is a contemporary dark fantasy about an unusually gifted young man obsessed with Fillory, the magical land of his favourite childhood books. Fillory is a thinly veiled substitute for Narnia, and clearly the author expects it to be experienced as such. Not only is the land home to many similar talking animals and mythical creatures, it is also accessed through a grandfather clock in the home of an uncle to whom five English children are sent during World War II. Moreover, the land is ruled by two Aslan-like rams named Ember and Umber, and terrorised by The Watcherwoman. She, like the White Witch, freezes the land in time. The book's plot revolves heavily around a place very like the "wood between the worlds" from The Magician's Nephew, an interworld waystation in which pools of water lead to other lands. This reference to The Magician's Nephew is echoed in the title of the book.

J. K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potter series, has said that she was a fan of the works of Lewis as a child, and cites the influence of The Chronicles on her work: "I found myself thinking about the wardrobe route to Narnia when Harry is told he has to hurl himself at a barrier in King's Cross Station - it dissolves and he's on platform Nine and Three-Quarters, and there's the train for Hogwarts." Nevertheless, she is at pains to stress the differences between Narnia and her world: "Narnia is literally a different world", she says, "whereas in the Harry books you go into a world within a world that you can see if you happen to belong. A lot of the humour comes from collisions between the magic and the everyday worlds. Generally there isn't much humour in the Narnia books, although I adored them when I was a child. I got so caught up I didn't think CS Lewis was especially preachy. Reading them now I find that his subliminal message isn't very subliminal." New York Times writer Charles McGrath notes the similarity between Dudley Dursley, the obnoxious son of Harry's neglectful guardians, and Eustace Scrubb, the spoiled brat who torments the main characters until he is redeemed by Aslan.

The comic book series Pakkins' Land by Gary and Rhoda Shipman in which a young child finds himself in a magical world filled with talking animals, including a lion character named King Aryah, has been compared favorably to the Narnia series. The Shipmans have cited the influence of C.S. Lewis and the Narnia series in response to reader letters. In 2019, Francis Spufford wrote The Stone Table, an unofficial Narnia continuation novel.

As with any popular long-lived work, contemporary culture abounds with references to the lion Aslan, travelling via wardrobe and direct mentions of The Chronicles. Examples include:

Charlotte Staples Lewis, a character first seen early in the fourth season of the TV series , is named in reference to C. S. Lewis. Lost producer Damon Lindelof said that this was a clue to the direction the show would take during the season. The book Ultimate Lost and Philosophy, edited by William Irwin and Sharon Kaye, contains a comprehensive essay on Lost plot motifs based on The Chronicles.

The second SNL Digital Short by Andy Samberg and Chris Parnell features a humorous nerdcore hip hop song titled Chronicles of Narnia (Lazy Sunday), which focuses on the performers' plan to see The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe at a cinema. It was described by Slate magazine as one of the most culturally significant Saturday Night Live skits in many years, and an important commentary on the state of rap. Swedish Christian power metal band Narnia, whose songs are mainly about the Chronicles of Narnia or the Bible, feature Aslan on all their album covers. The song "Further Up, Further In" from the album Room to Roam by Scottish-Irish folk-rock band The Waterboys is heavily influenced by The Chronicles of Narnia. The title is taken from a passage in The Last Battle, and one verse of the song describes sailing to the end of the world to meet a king, similar to the ending of Voyage of the Dawn Treader. C. S. Lewis is explicitly acknowledged as an influence in the liner notes of the 1990 compact disc.

During interviews, the primary creator of the Japanese anime and gaming series has said that he was inspired and influenced by The Chronicles of Narnia.

Lewis had authored a number of works on Christian apologetics and other literature with Christian-based themes before writing the Narnia books. The character Aslan is widely accepted by literary academia as being based on Jesus Christ. Lewis did not initially plan to incorporate Christian theological concepts into his Narnia stories. Lewis maintained that the Narnia books were not allegorical, preferring to term their Christian aspects a "supposition".

The Chronicles have, consequently, a large Christian following, and are widely used to promote Christian ideas. However, some Christians object that The Chronicles promote "soft-sell paganism and occultism" due to recurring pagan imagery and themes.

Gertrude Ward noted that "When Lewis wrote The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, he clearly meant to create a world where there were no human beings at all. As the titles of Mr. Tumnus' books testify, in this world human beings are creatures of myth, while its common daily reality includes fauns and other creatures which are myth in our world. This worked well for the first volume of the series, but for later volumes Lewis thought up plots which required having more human beings in this world. In Prince Caspian he still kept the original structure and explained that more humans had arrived from our world at a later time, overrunning Narnia. However, later on he gave in and changed the entire concept of this world - there have always been very many humans in this world, and Narnia is just one very special country with a lot of talking animals and fauns and dwarves etc. In this revised world, with a great human empire to the south of Narnia and human principality just next door, the White Witch would not have suspected Edmund of being a dwarf who shaved his beard - there would be far more simple and obvious explanations for his origin. And in fact, in this revised world it is not entirely clear why were the four Pevensie children singled out for the Thrones of Narnia, over so many other humans in the world. [...] Still, we just have to live with these discrepencies, and enjoy each Narnia book on its own merits."

In later years, both Lewis and the Chronicles have been criticised (often by other authors of fantasy fiction) for gender role stereotyping, though other authors have defended Lewis in this area. Most allegations of sexism centre on the description of Susan Pevensie in The Last Battle when Lewis writes that Susan is "no longer a friend of Narnia" and interested "in nothing nowadays except nylons and lipstick and invitations".

Philip Pullman, inimical to Lewis on many fronts, calls the Narnia stories "monumentally disparaging of women". His interpretation of the Susan passages reflects this view:

Susan, like Cinderella, is undergoing a transition from one phase of her life to another. Lewis didn't approve of that. He didn't like women in general, or sexuality at all, at least at the stage in his life when he wrote the Narnia books. He was frightened and appalled at the notion of wanting to grow up.

In fantasy author Neil Gaiman's short story "The Problem of Susan" (2004), an elderly woman, Professor Hastings, deals with the grief and trauma of her entire family's death in a train crash. Although the woman's maiden name is not revealed, details throughout the story strongly imply that this character is the elderly Susan Pevensie. The story is written for an adult audience and deals with issues of sexuality and violence and through it Gaiman presents a critique of Lewis's treatment of Susan, as well as the problem of evil as it relates to punishment and salvation.

Lewis supporters cite the positive roles of women in the series, including Jill Pole in The Silver Chair, Aravis Tarkheena in The Horse and His Boy, Polly Plummer in The Magician's Nephew, and particularly Lucy Pevensie in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Alan Jacobs, an English professor at Wheaton College, asserts that Lucy is the most admirable of the human characters and that generally the girls come off better than the boys throughout the series (Jacobs, 2008: 259). In her contribution to The Chronicles of Narnia and Philosophy, Karin Fry, an assistant professor of philosophy at the University of Wisconsin, Stevens Point, notes that "the most sympathetic female characters in The Chronicles are consistently the ones who question the traditional roles of women and prove their worth to Aslan through actively engaging in the adventures just like the boys." Fry goes on to say:

The characters have positive and negative things to say about both male and female characters, suggesting an equality between sexes. However, the problem is that many of the positive qualities of the female characters seem to be those by which they can rise above their femininity... The superficial nature of stereotypical female interests is condemned.

Nathan Ross notes that "Much of the plot of 'Wardrobe' is told exclusively from the point of view of Susan and Lucy. It is the girls who witness Aslan being killed and coming back to life - a unique experience from which the boys are excluded. Throughout, going through many highly frightening and shocking moments, Susan and Lucy behave with grown up courage and responsibility. Their experiences are told in full, over several chapters, while what the boys do at the same time - preparing an army and going into battle - is relegated to the background. This arrangement of material clearly implies that what girls saw and did was the more important. Given the commonly held interpretation - that Aslan is Jesus Christ and that what the girls saw was a no less than a reenacting of the Crucifixion - this order of priorities makes perfect sense".

Taking a different stance altogether, Monika B. Hilder provides a thorough examination of the feminine ethos apparent in each book of the series, and proposes that critics tend to misread Lewis's representation of gender. As she puts it "...we assume that Lewis is sexist when he is in fact applauding the 'feminine' heroic. To the extent that we have not examined our own chauvinism, we demean the 'feminine' qualities and extol the 'masculine' - not noticing that Lewis does the opposite."

In addition to sexism, Pullman and others have also accused the Narnia series of fostering racism. Over the alleged racism in The Horse and His Boy, newspaper editor Kyrie O'Connor wrote:

While the book's storytelling virtues are enormous, you don't have to be a bluestocking of political correctness to find some of this fantasy anti- Arab, or anti-Eastern, or anti- Ottoman. With all its stereotypes, mostly played for belly laughs, there are moments you'd like to stuff this story back into its closet.

Gregg Easterbrook, writing in The Atlantic, stated that "the Calormenes, are unmistakable Muslim stand-ins", while novelist Philip Hensher raises specific concerns that a reader might gain the impression that Islam is a "Satanic cult". In rebuttal to this charge, at an address to a C. S. Lewis conference, Devin Brown argued that there are too many dissimilarities between the Calormene religion and Islam, particularly in the areas of polytheism and human sacrifice, for Lewis's writing to be regarded as critical of Islam.

Nicholas Wanberg has argued, echoing claims by Mervyn Nicholson, that accusations of racism in the books are "an oversimplification", but he asserts that the stories employ beliefs about human aesthetics, including equating dark skin with ugliness, that have been traditionally associated with racist thought.

Critics also argue whether Lewis's work presents a positive or negative view of colonialism. Nicole DuPlessis favors the anticolonial view, claiming "the negative effects of colonial exploitations and the themes of animals' rights and responsibility to the environment are emphasized in Lewis's construction of a community of living things. Through the negative examples of illegitimate rulers, Lewis constructs the 'correct' relationship between humans and nature, providing examples of rulers like Caspian who fulfil their responsibilities to the environment." Clare Etcherling counters with her claim that "those 'illegitimate' rulers are often very dark-skinned" and that the only "legitimate rulers are those sons and daughters of Adam and Eve who adhere to Christian conceptions of morality and stewardship - either white English children (such as Peter) or Narnians who possess characteristics valued and cultivated by the British (such as Caspian)."

Adaptations of The Chronicles of Narnia

Various books from The Chronicles of Narnia have been adapted for television over the years.

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe was first adapted in 1967. Comprising ten episodes of thirty minutes each, the screenplay was written by Trevor Preston, and directed by Helen Standage.

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe was adapted again in 1979, this time as an animated cartoon co-produced by Bill Melendez and the Children's Television Workshop, with a screenplay by David D. Connell.

Between 1988 and 1990, the first four books (as published) were adapted by the BBC as three TV serials. They were also aired in America on the PBS/Disney show WonderWorks. They were nominated for a total of 16 awards, including an Emmy for "Outstanding Children's Program" and a number of BAFTA awards including Best Children's Programme (Entertainment/Drama) in 1988, 1989 and 1990.

The premiere of The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian in 2008

Sceptical that any cinematic adaptation could render the more fantastical elements and characters of the story realistically, Lewis never sold the film rights to the Narnia series. In answering a letter with a question posed by a child in 1957, asking if the Narnia series could please be on television, C. S. Lewis wrote back: "They'd be no good on TV. Humanised beasts can't be presented to the eye without at once becoming either hideous or ridiculous. I wish the idiots who run the film world [would] realize that there are stories which are for the ear alone."

The first novel adapted was The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Released in December 2005, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe was produced by Walden Media, distributed by Walt Disney Pictures, and directed by Andrew Adamson, with a screenplay by Ann Peacock, Stephen McFeely and Christopher Markus. The second novel adapted was The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian. Released in 2008, it was co-produced by Walden Media and Walt Disney Pictures, co-written and directed by Andrew Adamson, with Screenwriters including Christopher Markus & Stephen McFeely. In December 2008, Disney pulled out of financing the remainder of the Chronicles of Narnia film series. However, Walden Media and 20th Century Fox eventually co-produced The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, which was released in December 2010.

In May 2012, producer Douglas Gresham confirmed that Walden Media's contract with the C.S. Lewis Estate had expired, and that there was a moratorium on producing any Narnia films outside of Walden Media. On 1 October 2013, it was announced that the C.S. Lewis Company had entered into an agreement with the Mark Gordon Company to jointly develop and produce The Chronicles of Narnia: The Silver Chair. On 26 April 2017, Joe Johnston was hired to direct the film. In October, Johnston said filming is expected to begin in late 2018. In November 2018, these plans were halted because Netflix had begun developing adaptations of the entire series.

On 3 October 2018, the C.S. Lewis Company announced that Netflix had acquired the rights to new film and television series adaptations of the Narnia books. According to , this was the first time that rights to the entire Narnia catalogue had been held by a single company. Entertainment One, which had acquired production rights to a fourth Narnia film, also joined the series. Mark Gordon, Douglas Gresham and Vincent Sieber were announced as executive producers.

The BBC produced dramatisations of all seven novels starting in the late 1980s and running into the 90s starring Maurice Denham as Professor Kirke. They were Originally broadcast on BBC Radio 4 In the UK. BBC Audiobooks released both audio cassette and compact disc versions of the series.

Between 1998 and 2002, Focus on the Family produced radio dramatisations by Paul McCusker of the entire series through its Radio Theatre programme. Over one hundred performers took part including Paul Scofield as the storyteller and David Suchet as Aslan. Accompanied by an original orchestral score and cinema-quality digital sound design, the series was hosted by Lewis's stepson Douglas Gresham and ran for just over 22 hours. Recordings of the entire adaptation were released on compact disc between 1999 and 2003.

Many stage adaptations of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe have been produced over the years.

In 1984, Vanessa Ford Productions presented The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe at London's Westminster Theatre. Adapted by Glyn Robbins, the play was directed by Richard Williams and designed by Marty Flood. The production was later revived at Westminster and The Royalty Theatre and went on tour until 1997. Productions of other tales from The Chronicles were also staged, including The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (1986), The Magician's Nephew (1988) and The Horse and His Boy (1990).

In 1997, Trumpets Inc., a Filipino Christian theatre and musical production company, produced a musical rendition of "The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe" that Douglas Gresham, Lewis's stepson (and co-producer of the Walden Media film adaptations), has openly declared that he feels is the closest to Lewis's intent. The book and lyrics were written by Jaime del Mundo and Luna Inocian, while the music was composed by Lito Villareal.

The Royal Shakespeare Company premiered The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe in Stratford-upon-Avon in 1998. The novel was adapted as a musical production by Adrian Mitchell, with music by Shaun Davey. The show was originally directed by Adrian Noble and designed by Anthony Ward, with the revival directed by Lucy Pitman-Wallace. Well received by audiences, the production was periodically re-staged by the RSC for several years afterwards.

1. ^ Kelly, Clint (2006). "Dear Mr. Lewis". Response. 29 (1). The seven books of Narnia have sold more than 100 million copies in 30 languages, nearly 20 million in the last 10 years alone

2. ^ Edward, Guthmann (11 December 2005). "'Narnia' tries to cash in on dual audience". San Francisco Chronicle. Archived from the original on 15 May 2012.

3. ^ GoodKnight, Glen H. (3 August 2010). "Narnia Editions & Translations". Archived from the original on 3 March 2011.

4. ^ Hooper, Walter (1979). "Outline of Narnian history so far as it is known". Past Watchful Dragons: The Narnian Chronicles of C. S. Lewis. New York: Macmillan Publishing Co. pp. 41-44. ISBN 0-02-051970-2.

5. ^ Rilstone, Andrew. "What Order Should I Read the Narnia Books in (And Does It Matter?)". The Life and Opinions of Andrew Rilstone, Gentleman. Archived from the original on 30 November 2005.

6. ^ Trotter, Drew (11 November 2005). "What Did C. S. Lewis Mean, and Does It Matter?". Leadership U.

7. ^ Barrett, Justin L. (2010). "Some Planets in Narnia: a quantitative investigation of the Planet Narnia thesis" (PDF). Seven: an Anglo-American literary review (Wheaton College).

8. ^ Johnson, William C.; Houtman, Marcia K. (1986). "Platonic Shadows in C. S. Lewis' Narnia Chronicles". Modern Fiction Studies. 32 (1): 75-87. doi:10.1353/mfs.0.1154. S2CID 162284034.

9. ^ Poskanzer, Susan Cornell (May 1976). "Thoughts on C. S. Lewis and the Chronicles of Narnia". Language Arts. 53 (5): 523-526.

10. Renton, Jennie (28 November 2001). "The story behind the Potter legend". The Sydney Morning Herald.

11. ^ "Artist weaves faith into acclaimed comics". Lubbockonline.com. Archived from the original on 27 September 2015.

12. Jensen, Jeff, (20 February 2008) "^ 'Lost': Mind-Blowing Scoop From Its Producers Archived 29 November 2014 at the Wayback Machine", Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved 29 October 2008.

13. Carpenter, ^ The Inklings, p.42-45. See also Lewis's own autobiography Surprised by Joy

14. ^ Hurst, Josh (5 December 2005). "Nine Minutes of Narnia". Christianity Today Movies. Archived from the original on 12 March 2008.

15. See essay "Is Theism Important?" in ^ Lewis, C. S. (15 September 2014). Hooper, Walter (ed.). God in the Dock. William B. Eerdmans Publishing. pp. 186-. ISBN 978-0-8028-7183-1.

16. ^ Pullman, Philip (2 September 2001). "The Dark Side of Narnia". The Cumberland River Lamppost. Archived from the original on 16 November 2010.

17. ^ Gaiman, Neil (2004). "The Problem of Susan". In Sarrantonio, Al (ed.). Flights: Extreme Visions of Fantasy Volume II. New York: New American Library. ISBN 978-0-451-46099-8.

18. Wagner, Hank; Golden, Christopher; Bissette, Stephen R. (28 October 2008). Prince of Stories: The Many Worlds of Neil Gaiman. St. Martin's Press. pp. 395-. ISBN 978-1-4299-6178-3.

19. ^ Nathan Vernon Ross, "Narnia Revisited" in "Is Children's Literature Intended Only For Children?", 2002 essay collection edited by Cynthia McDowel, p. 185-197

20. ^ O'Connor, Kyrie (1 December 2005). "5th Narnia book may not see big screen". Houston Chronicle. IndyStar.com. Archived from the original on 14 December 2005.

21. ^ Hensher, Philip (1 March 1999). "Don't let your children go to Narnia: C. S. Lewis's books are racist and misogynist". Discovery Institute.

22. ^ Wanberg, Nicholas (2013). "Noble and Beautiful: Race and Human Aesthetics in C. S. Lewis's The Chronicles of Narnia". Fafnir: Nordic Journal of Science Fiction and Fantasy Research. 1 (3).

23. ^ Echterling, Clare (2016). "Postcolonial Ecocriticism, Classic Children's Literature, and the Imperial-Environmental Imagination in The Chronicles of Narnia". The Journal of the Midwest Modern Language Association. 49 (1): 102.

24. ^ Kroll, Justin (26 April 2017). "'Captain America' Director Joe Johnston Boards 'Narnia' Revival 'The Silver Chair' (Exclusive)". Variety.

25. ^ Beatrice Verhoeven (3 October 2018). "Netflix to Develop Series, Films Based on CS Lewis' 'The Chronicles of Narnia'". the wrap.

26. ^ Beatrice Verhoeven (3 October 2018). "Netflix to Develop Series, Films Based on CS Lewis' 'The Chronicles of Narnia'". the wrap.

27. ^ Jenkins, Aric (1 November 2018). "Netflix Looks in the Wardrobe to Find a Fantasy Hit". Fortune (Paper). 178 (5): 19.

28. ^ Andreeva, Nellie (3 October 2018). "Netflix To Develop 'The Chronicles of Narnia' TV Series & Films".

29. ^ Wright, Greg. "Reviews by Greg Wright - Narnia Radio Broadcast". Archived from the original on 10 July 2005.

30. ^ Simpson, Paul (2013). A Brief Guide to C. S. Lewis: From Mere Christianity to Narnia. Little, Brown Book Group. ISBN 978-0762450763.

Bruner, Kurt; Ware, Jim (2005). Finding God in the Land of Narnia. Tyndale House Publishers.

Bustard, Ned (2004). The Chronicles of Narnia Comprehension Guide. Veritas Press.

Goldthwaite, John (1996). The Natural History of Make-believe: A Guide to the Principal Works of Britain, Europe and America. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-503806-4.

Gopnik, Adam (21 November 2005). "Prisoner of Narnia". The New Yorker.

Green, Jonathon (2007). "The recycled image". Times and Seasons.

Holbrook, David (1991). The Skeleton in the Wardrobe: C. S. Lewis's Fantasies - A Phenomenological Study. Bucknell University Press. ISBN 978-0-8387-5183-1.

Jacobs, Alan (2005). The Narnian: The Life and Imagination of C. S. Lewis. HarperSanFrancisco.

Jacobs, Tom (2004). Remembering a Master Mythologist and His Connection to Santa Barbara. Santa Barbara: Santa Barbara News-Press. ISBN. Archived from the original on 17 June 2004.

Kessler, Emanuel (2023). "Five Lessons by C.S. Lewis' Narnia, Discovered for Agile Teams". INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF BUSINESS RESEARCH MANAGEMENT (IJBRM).

McIntosh, Kenneth (2006). Following Aslan: A Book of Devotions for Children. Anamchara Books.

Pearce, Joseph (2004). Literary Giants, Literary Catholics. Ignatius Press. ISBN 978-1-58617-077-6.

Shober, Dianne (2019). "Leonine imagery in C.S. Lewis's series The Chronicles of Narnia". Literator. Vol. 40. doi:10.4102/lit.v40i1.1558.

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The Chronicles of Narnia is a series of seven portal fantasy novels by British author C. S. Lewis. Illustrated by Pauline Baynes and originally published between 1950 and 1956, The Chronicles of Narnia has been adapted for radio, television, the stage, film and video games.

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While easy to read the reader is able to understand the complex backgrounds of each character and what drives them to complete the task of proving that Percy Jackson is not the lightening thief. With redemption and heroism following throughout the book, the plot is able to keep the reader hooked on what happens next. The book allows for a pacing that is slow enough for the reader to follow, but keeps the pace fast enough to where the reader is engaged.

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The book is entitled Percy Jackson and the Greek Gods in the U.K. and much of the Commonwealth of Nations. It is generally published under the Puffin Books imprint of Penguin Group and may be presented as Percy Jackson and the Olympians, volume 6.

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Life in the Ocean: The Story of Oceanographer Sylvia Earle

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Life in the Ocean: The Story of Oceanographer Sylvia Earle

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Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass

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Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass

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Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave is an 1845 memoir and treatise on abolition written by African-American orator and former slave Frederick Douglass during his time in Lynn, Massachusetts. It is the first of Douglass's three autobiographies, the others being My Bondage and My Freedom (1855) and Life and Times of Frederick Douglass (1881, revised 1892).

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass is generally held to be the most famous of a number of narratives written by former slaves during the same period. In factual detail, the text describes the events of his life and is considered to be one of the most influential pieces of literature to fuel the abolitionist movement of the early 19th century in the United States.

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass comprises eleven chapters that recount Douglass's life as a slave and his ambition to become a free man. It contains two introductions by well-known white abolitionists: a preface by William Lloyd Garrison and a letter by Wendell Phillips, both arguing for the veracity of the account and the literacy of its author.

Douglass begins by explaining that he does not know the date of his birth (in his third autobiography, he wrote, "I suppose myself to have been born in February 1817"), and that his mother died when he was 7 years old. He has very few memories of her (children were commonly separated from their mothers), only of the rare nighttime visit. He thinks his father is a white man, possibly his owner. At a very early age, he sees his Aunt Hester being whipped. Douglass details the cruel interaction that occurs between slaves and slaveholders, as well as how slaves are supposed to behave in the presence of their masters. Douglass says that fear is what kept many slaves in servitude, for when they told the truth they were punished by their owners.

Frontispiece of Douglass from the first edition

Douglass is moved to Baltimore, Maryland. Douglass believes that if he had not been moved, he would have remained a slave his entire life. He even starts to hope for a better future. He also discusses the wife of his new owner, Mrs. Sophia Auld, who begins as a kind woman but eventually turns cruel to him. Douglass learns the alphabet and how to spell small words from this woman, but her husband, Mr. Auld, disapproves and states that if slaves could read, they would not be fit to be slaves, being unmanageable and sad. (Anti-literacy laws also prohibited teaching antebellum slaves to read and write.) Upon hearing why Mr. Auld disapproves of slaves being taught how to read, Douglass realizes the importance of reading and the possibilities that this skill could help him. He takes it upon himself to learn how to read and does so by playing games with white neighboring children. Douglass then gains an understanding of the word abolition and develops the idea to run away to the North. He also learns how to write and how to read well.

When Douglass is ten or eleven, his master dies and his property is left to be divided between the master's son and daughter. The slaves are valued along with the livestock, causing Douglass to deepen his hatred of slavery. He feels lucky when he is sent back to Baltimore to live with the family of Master Hugh.

He is then moved through a few situations before being sent to St. Michael's. His regret at not having attempted to run away is evident, but on his voyage he makes a mental note that he traveled in a north-easterly direction and considers this information to be of extreme importance. For some time, he lives with Master Thomas Auld who is particularly cruel, even after attending a Methodist camp. Douglass is pleased when he eventually is lent to Mr. Covey for a year, simply because he would be fed. Mr. Covey is known as a "negro-breaker", who breaks the will of slaves.

While under the control of Mr. Covey, Douglass is a field hand and has an especially hard time at the tasks required of him. He is harshly whipped almost on a weekly basis, apparently due to his awkwardness. He is worked and beaten to exhaustion, which finally causes him to collapse one day while working in the fields. Because of this, he is brutally beaten once more by Covey. Douglass eventually complains to Thomas Auld, who subsequently sends him back to Covey. A few days later, Covey attempts to tie up Douglass, but he fights back. After a two-hour long physical battle, Douglass ultimately conquers Covey. After this fight, he is never beaten again. Douglass is not punished by the law, which is believed to be due to the fact that Covey cherishes his reputation as a "negro-breaker", which would be jeopardized if others knew what happened. When his one-year contract ends under Covey, Douglass is sent to live on William Freeland's plantation. Douglass comments on the abuse suffered under Covey, a religious man, and the relative peace under the more secular Freeland. On Freeland's plantation, Douglass befriends other slaves and teaches them how to read. Douglass and a small group of slaves plan to escape, but they are caught and Douglass is jailed. Following his release about a week later, he is sent to Baltimore once more, this time to learn a trade. He becomes an apprentice in a shipyard under Mr. Gardner where he is disliked by several white apprentices due to his slave status and race; at one point he gets into a fight with them and they nearly gouge out his left eye. Woefully beaten, Douglass goes to Master Hugh, who is kind regarding this situation and refuses to let Douglass return to the shipyard. Master Hugh tries to find a lawyer but all refuse, saying they can only do something for a white person. Sophia Auld, who had turned cruel under the influence of slavery, feels pity for Douglass and tends to the wound at his left eye until he is healed. At this point, Douglass is employed as a caulker and receives wages, but is forced to give every cent to Master Auld in due time. Douglass eventually finds his own job and plans the day on which he will escape to the North. He succeeds in reaching New Bedford, but he does not give details in order to protect those who help others flee enslavement. Douglass unites with his fiancée and begins working as his own master. He attends an anti-slavery convention and eventually becomes a well-known orator and abolitionist.

After the main narrative, Douglass's appendix clarifies that he is not against religion as a whole; instead he referred to "the slaveholding religion of this land, and with no possible reference to Christianity proper". He condemns the hypocrisy in southern Christianity between what is taught and the actions of the slaveowners who practice it. He compares their Christianity to the practices of "the ancient scribes and Pharisees" and quotes passages from Matthew 23 calling them hypocrites. At the end, he includes a satire of a hymn "said to have been drawn, several years before the present anti-slavery agitation began, by a northern Methodist preacher, who, while residing at the south, had an opportunity to see slaveholding morals, manners, and piety, with his own eyes", titled simply "A Parody". It criticizes religious slaveowners, each stanza ending with the phrase "heavenly union", mimicking the original's form.

Douglass, photographed between 1850 and 1860

The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass was published on May 1, 1845, and within four months of this publication, five thousand copies were sold. By 1860, almost 30,000 copies were sold. After publication, he left Lynn, Massachusetts and sailed to England and Ireland for two years in fear of being recaptured by his owner in the United States. While in Britain and Ireland, he gained supporters who paid $710.96 to purchase his emancipation from his legal owner. One of the more significant reasons Douglass published his Narrative was to offset the demeaning manner in which white people viewed him. When he spoke in public, his white abolitionist associates established limits to what he could say on the platform. More specifically, they did not want him to analyze the current slavery issues or to shape the future for black people. However, once Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass was published, he was given the liberty to speak more honestly. Because of the work in his Narrative, Douglass gained significant credibility from those who previously did not believe the story of his past. While Douglass was in Ireland, the Dublin edition of the book was published by the abolitionist printer Richard D. Webb to great acclaim and Douglass would write extensively in later editions very positively about his experience in Ireland. His newfound liberty on the platform eventually led him to start a black newspaper against the advice of his "fellow" abolitionists. The publication of Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass opened several doors, not only for Douglass's ambitious work, but also for the anti-slavery movement of that time.

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass received many positive reviews, but some people opposed it. One of its biggest critics, A. C. C. Thompson, was a neighbor of Thomas Auld, who was Douglass's master for some time. In Thompson's "Letter from a Slave Holder", he claimed that the slave he knew was "an unlearned, and rather an ordinary negro". Thompson was confident that Douglass "was not capable of writing the Narrative". He also disputed Douglass's description in the Narrative of various cruel white slave holders that he either knew or knew of. Prior to the publication of the Narrative, the public could not fathom how a former slave could appear to be so educated. Upon listening to his oratory, many were skeptical of the stories he told. After publication of the Narrative, however, the public was swayed. Margaret Fuller, a prominent Transcendentalist, author, and editor, admired Douglass's book: "we have never read [a narrative] more simple, true, coherent, and warm with genuine feeling". She also suggested that "every one may read his book and see what a mind might have been stifled in bondage, - what a man may be subjected to the insults of spendthrift dandies, or the blows of mercenary brutes, in whom there is no whiteness except of the skin, no humanity in the outward form".... Douglass's Narrative was influential in the anti-slavery movement.

Angela Y. Davis analyzed Douglass's Narrative in two lectures delivered at UCLA in 1969, titled "Recurring Philosophical Themes in Black Literature." Those lectures were subsequently published during Davis's imprisonment in 1970-1971 as the 24-page pamphlet Lectures on Liberation. The lectures, along with a 2009 introduction by Davis, were republished in Davis's 2010 new critical edition of the Narrative.

The first chapter of this text has also been mobilized in several major texts that have become foundational texts in contemporary Black studies: Hortense Spillers in her article "Mama's Baby, Papa's Maybe: An American Grammar Book" (1987); Saidiya Hartman in her book Scenes of Subjection: Terror, Slavery, and Self-Making in Nineteenth-Century America (1997), and Fred Moten in his book In the Break: The Aesthetics of the Black Radical Tradition (2003). Each author uniquely contends with and navigates through Douglass's writing. Specifically, each author has a divergent approach to revisiting or reproducing narratives of the suffering enslaved body. These divergences on Douglass are further reflected in their differing explorations of the conditions where subject and object positions of the enslaved body are produced and/or troubled. Spillers mobilizes Douglass's description of his and his siblings' early separation from their mother and subsequent estrangement from each other to articulate how the syntax of subjectivity, in particular "kinship", has a historically specific relationship to the objectifying formations of chattel slavery which denied genetic links and familial bonds between the enslaved. This denial was part of the processes that worked to reinforce the enslaved position as property and object. Spillers frames Douglass's narrative as writing that, although frequently returned to, still has the ability to "astonish" contemporary readers with each return to this scene of enslaved grief and loss (Spillers, "Mama's Baby", 76). By tracing the historical conditions of captivity through which slave humanity is defined as "absence from a subject position" narratives like Douglass's, chronicles of the Middle Passage, and Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, are framed as impression points that have not lost their affective potential or become problematically familiar through repetitions or revisions (Spillers, "Mama's Baby", 66). Spillers own (re)visitation of Douglass's narrative suggests that these efforts are a critical component to her assertion that "[i]n order for me to speak a truer word concerning myself, I must strip down through layers of attenuated meanings, made an excess in time, over time, assigned by a particular historical order, and there await whatever marvels of my own inventiveness" (Spillers, "Mama's Baby", 65).

In contrast to Spiller's articulation that repetition does not rob Douglass's narrative of its power, Saidiya Hartman explores how an over familiarity with narratives of the suffering enslaved body is problematic. In Hartman's work, repeated "exposure of the violated body" is positioned as a process that can lead to a benumbing "indifference to suffering" (Hartman, Scenes of Objection, 4). This turn away from Douglass' description of the violence carried out against his Aunt Hester is contextualized by Hartman's critical examination of 19th century abolitionist writings in the Antebellum South. These abolitionist narratives included extreme representations of violence carried out against the enslaved body which were included to establish the slave's humanity and evoke empathy while exposing the terrors of the institution. However, Hartman posits that these abolitionist efforts, which may have intended to convey enslaved subjectivities, actually aligned more closely to replications of objectivity since they "reinforce[d] the 'thingly' quality of the captive by reducing the body to evidence" (Hartman, Scenes of Subjection, 19). Instead of concentrating on these narratives that dramatized violence and the suffering black body, Hartman is more focused on revealing the quotidian ways that enslaved personhood and objectivity were selectively constructed or brought into tension in scenes like the coffle, coerced performances of slave leisure on the plantation, and the popular theater of the Antebellum South.

Fred Moten's engagement with Narrative of The Life of Frederick Douglass echoes Spillers assertion that "every writing as a revision makes the 'discovery' all over again" (Spillers, 69). In his book chapter "Resistance of the Object: Aunt Hester's Scream" he speaks to Hartman's move away from Aunt Hester's experience of violence. Moten questions whether Hartman's opposition to reproducing this narrative is not actually a direct move through a relationship between violence and the captive body positioned as object, that she had intended to avoid. Moten suggests that as Hartman outlines the reasons for her opposition, her written reference to the narrative and the violence of its content may indeed be an inevitable reproduction. This is reflected in his question "of whether performance in general is ever outside the economy of reproduction" (Moten, In the Break, 4). A key parameter in Moten's analytical method and the way he engages with Hartman's work is an exploration of blackness as a positional framework through which objectivity and humanity are performed. This suggests that an attempt to move beyond the violence and object position of Aunt Hester would always be first a move through these things. Through this framework of the performativity of blackness Moten's revisitation of Douglass's narrative explores how the sounds of black performance might trouble conventional understandings of subjectivity and subjective speech.

Sources

Commentary

John Hansen. "Frederick Douglass's Journey from Slave to Freeman: An Acquisition and Mastery of Language, Rhetoric, and Power via the Narrative." The Griot: The Journal of African American Studies, vol. 31, no. 2, 2012, pp. 14-23.

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Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass - Wikipedia

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Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave is an 1845 memoir and treatise on abolition written by African-American orator and former slave Frederick Douglass during his time in Lynn, Massachusetts. It is the first of Douglass's three autobiographies, the others being My Bondage and My Freedom (1855) and Life and Times of Frederick Douglass (1881, revised 1892).

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 The Magnificent Migration: On Safari with Africa's Last Great Herds

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 The Magnificent Migration: On Safari with Africa's Last Great Herds

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The Magnificent Migration: On Safari with Africa's Last Great Herds

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The Magnificent Migration: On Safari with Africa's Last Great Herds [Montgomery, Sy, Wood, Roger, Wood, Logan] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. The Magnificent Migration: On Safari with Africa's Last Great Herds

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