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Viewing: Blog Posts Tagged with: C. S. Lewis, Most Recent at Top [Help]
Results 1 - 10 of 10
1. Who is your favourite character from children’s literature?

In order to celebrate the launch of The Oxford Companion to Children’s Literature in March, we invited OUP staff to dress up as their favourite characters from children’s books. The result was one surreal day during which our Oxford offices were overrun with children’s literature characters, ranging from the Cat in the Hat to Aslan, from Pippi Longstocking to the Tiger Who Came to Tea, and from Little Red Riding Hood to the Very Hungry Caterpillar. It was a brilliant and brave effort by all those who attended. Particularly those who commuted to and from work in their costumes!

The post Who is your favourite character from children’s literature? appeared first on OUPblog.

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2. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wordbook

Curious Words from the Chronicles of Narnia

By Jeremy Marshall

Many dictionaries and guides are careful to warn readers about the difference between a faun and a fawn. However, anyone familiar with the tales of C. S. Lewis is unlikely to confuse these two shy inhabitants of woodland glades, since the goat-footed, part-human faun of classical Roman mythology is the first strange creature we encounter when reading The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. Those who know the film/movie version will be flocking back to the theaters this month to see more fantastical creatures in Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.

Many legendary creatures from ancient Greece and Rome, the Middle East, and Northern Europe inhabit Lewis’s Narnia. From the classical world come the beautiful maidens called nymphs, including the dryads, spirits of trees, and naiads, spirits of streams and springs. (Lewis also calls the naiads ‘well-women’, which now reads rather oddly to anyone who has heard of ‘well woman’ health clinics.) Also familiar to most readers are the centaur—half horse, half human—and the more sinister minotaur, or bull-headed man. The classical cast is completed by the god Bacchus, with Silenus and the satyrs—similar to the fauns, but linked more to drunken revels than pastoral idylls—and by the monopods, a one-legged race featured in The Voyage of the ‘Dawn Treader’, whose history can be traced back to ‘tall tales’ of the wonders of India, written down by credulous (or unscrupulous) ancient Greek writers and repeated by the Roman encyclopedist Pliny the Elder.

Mismatched myths
Alongside these—in a mythological mix which is said to have irritated Lewis’s friend Tolkien—we find the dwarf of Germanic legend and the ogre of old French tales, as well as the merman, the werewolf, the bogle (Lewis uses the old northern spelling boggle), and the wraith. Among the retinue of the White Witch are three entirely unfamiliar types of creature, the orknies, ettins,

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3. LadyStar The Palace in the Sky is a Free Online Book!

strong girls find enchanted treasures new best friends and myths legends and fables in a land of dragons princesses and cute animals

LadyStar is the story of a group of girls who each have a powerful weapon they wear disguised as a priceless jeweled treasure. With their magical weapons, Jessica Hoshi and her friends can transform into the Ajan Warriors, champion defenders of the enchanted realm of Aventar!



Jessica Hoshi a cheerful and optimistic girl

“Hi! I’m Jessica Hoshi! If you like stories about action and adventure and discovering magical treasures and fighting evil monsters, you’ll like our books a lot! Me and my friends have lots of fun adventures together! You can read LadyStar: The Palace in the Sky for free! The whole book! Right in your browser! So tell all your friends and come visit us as much as you want! There’s always something fun happening on our site!”

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4. Poor Pluto, but lucky us

The Planet Hunter: The Story Behind What Happened to Pluto
by Elizabeth Rusch; illustrated by Guy Francis

Rising Moon

I boast a stargazer or two in my household. My son has rocket ship sheets on his bed, glowing stars on his wall and a real telescope my husband props on the balcony when they feel like braving the icy winds off Lake Michigan.

This book didn't last two seconds out of the package before both my little spaceman and my big one were hunched over it, reading, pointing and exclaiming. Something about the hubbub over Pluto really gets amateur astronomers going, and mine aren't the only ones.

In case you've been living on an asteroid, Pluto got bumped from the planet club last year after astronomers decided there were too many other Pluto-esque balls of ice and rock floating around the same neighborhood. It just wasn't special enough after all.

Nothing could make such a phenomenon hit closer than dramatizing it as a personal quest. Rusch cuts through the science and brings us a gripping, highly readable story of one persistent, likable young astronomer determined to find another planet in the Kuiper belt at the very fringes of the solar system.

We follow Mike Brown from his boyhood making moon craters in his muddy backyard to his adult years and the ingenious system he developed to detect new heavenly bodies using an old observatory telescope. How exciting to see his discoveries one by one, laid out in funny side notes that explain their names (he dubbed one "Santa" after the red-suited Christmas visitor) and some weird facts about them. We feel his excitement--and determination--build as he wonders what, exactly, he's stumbled upon.

There's no ending to spoil; Brown's adventures go on and on. Somewhere out there, peering into space, the man who forced a re-examining of certain celestial truths is still happily mapping his piece of heaven.

Rating: *\*\*\

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5. Poor Pluto, but lucky us

The Planet Hunter: The Story Behind What Happened to Pluto
by Elizabeth Rusch; illustrated by Guy Francis

Rising Moon

I boast a stargazer or two in my household. My son has rocket ship sheets on his bed, glowing stars on his wall and a real telescope my husband props on the balcony when they feel like braving the icy winds off Lake Michigan.

This book didn't last two seconds out of the package before both my little spaceman and my big one were hunched over it, reading, pointing and exclaiming. Something about the hubbub over Pluto really gets amateur astronomers going, and mine aren't the only ones.

In case you've been living on an asteroid, Pluto got bumped from the planet club last year after astronomers decided there were too many other Pluto-esque balls of ice and rock floating around the same neighborhood. It just wasn't special enough after all.

Nothing could make such a phenomenon hit closer than dramatizing it as a personal quest. Rusch cuts through the science and brings us a gripping, highly readable story of one persistent, likable young astronomer determined to find another planet in the Kuiper belt at the very fringes of the solar system.

We follow Mike Brown from his boyhood making moon craters in his muddy backyard to his adult years and the ingenious system he developed to detect new heavenly bodies using an old observatory telescope. How exciting to see his discoveries one by one, laid out in funny side notes that explain their names (he dubbed one "Santa" after the red-suited Christmas visitor) and some weird facts about them. We feel his excitement--and determination--build as he wonders what, exactly, he's stumbled upon.

There's no ending to spoil; Brown's adventures go on and on. Somewhere out there, peering into space, the man who forced a re-examining of certain celestial truths is still happily mapping his piece of heaven.

Rating: *\*\*\

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6. Golden Compass

The Toronto Star reports that Halton's Catholic board has pulled The Golden Compass from school library shelves, pending a review by its trustees. Author Philip Pullman, who describes himself as an atheist, apparently wrote the series His Dark Materials as a response to C. S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia (which ironically have been challenged themselves).

Read a synopsis of The Golden Compass. It was voted the best children's book in the past 70 years by readers across the globe, according to news articles. Although it was published in 1995, the controversy is unfolding now because it has been made into a movie which will be released soon. Students can ask librarians for the book but it will not be displayed on shelves.

Toronto Star readers have voiced their opinions, many coming out in support of the presence of the book in schools.

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7. Pluto?

Shannon Ka Yoru an artistic and thoughtful girl
“Well, that’s all fine and good, but what about Pluto?”

Talitha Hayashi a shy and brilliantly intelligent girl
“It’s a planet. Are you savvy?”

Ranko Yorozu an athletic and strong girl
“BOOYA!”


Jessica Hoshi a cheerful and optimistic girl

*giggle*

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8. Wait! Planet Attack!

Ranko Yorozu an athletic and strong girl
“Wait! Wait! Wait! Say it with me!”


Jessica Hoshi a cheerful and optimistic girl

“Okay!”

Ranko Yorozu an athletic and strong girl
“Pluto!”

Shannon Ka Yoru an artistic and thoughtful girl
“Planet!”


Jessica Hoshi a cheerful and optimistic girl

“Booya!”

Ranko Yorozu an athletic and strong girl
“OUT!”

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9. Zoo in the Sky

by Jacqueline Mitton; Illustrated by Christina Balit

I am always looking for well-explained astronomy for children, and this book delivers. From the tiny details, like having the crescent moon pointing in the right direction (a point that too many children's illustrators miss), to the simple and informative descriptions of the constellations and key stars, Zoo in the Sky gives emerging readers anchors in the night sky. The inside front and back covers have sky maps, giving you an opportunity to point out that northern and southern hemispheres have different constellations (rimmed by the zodiac), as well as a chance to show your reading partner the big picture.

--Juno

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10. POETRY FRIDAY Starstruck

Comets, Stars, The Moon and Mars
by Douglas Florian

I honestly don't know why the WaPo didn't love this book. Elizabeth Ward drubbed the verses as having "all the verve of a mnemonic." I disagree, and not just because the publisher mistakenly sent me three copies.

Check out the charming wordplay in Saturn, for example:

Saturn's rings turn round Saturn.
Its moons turn round it, too.
Saturn, by turns, turns round the sun
Saturning through and through.

And then there's this pithy summation of Pluto's woes:

Pluto was a planet.
Pluto was admired.
Pluto was a planet.
Till one day it got fired.

Mnemonic? Maybe, if in the sense it'll help fix the planets and other heavenly bodies more firmly in a child's memory. But aside from a few clunkers like the Uranus one Ward cites, most of this collection sparkles.

Florian avoids the kiddie poetry cliches that drive me nuts: he varies his meter and rhyme schemes, he fiddles and diddles with meanings, his images occasionally startle, and he's playful and witty at almost every turn, but gets his facts straight.

And the art! He primed brown paper bags (how's that for recycling?) and used great swashes of wet, drippy color, and then interspersedbits of paper and stamped letters, all tied together thematically to each poem. Check out the little cut-outs too, which open windows onto different pages.

But don't be fooled; these collages only look messy and spontaneous. It's all still uncluttered and carefully composed, and rife with visual puns and playful diversions, a perfect foil to his verses.

Take the Pluto poem again--our poor, demoted pal is stamped with letters spelling rock? hard place? dog? stone? ufo? oddball? etc. I found myself resisting the urge to utterly decimate his copyright and recreate the art as giant murals in my son's space-themed bedroom.

Rating: *\*\*\*\

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