Hague and some Housekeeping

Dear Annie,

Your Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe experience sounds just wonderful.  And the illustrations -- wow, I'd never seen those.  We became very familiar with Michael Hague illustrations the many times we read Lizzie The Hobbit in the paperback oversized edition.  I liked the pictures you posted so much that I e-mailed my Harper sales rep (they're the current C.S. Lewis rights-holders) and asked if anyone's ever considered re-issuing that edition.  She passed the question along -- will post the answer here if I get one.

I have no memory of  reading The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe as a kid.  My father (your grandfather) had little patience with those Oxford guys.  I remember his railing against Tolkien -- he felt the language and the stories were both too fussy -- whom I also didn't read as a kid.  And I can imagine Grandpa having little patience with the C.S. Lewis brand of Christianity.  We read The Lion, The Witch with both girls -- I really like it, despite the crucifixion/resurrection thing.  I'm curious to see if you and Eleanor charge on into the other Narnia books.  I think we slogged through them all at least once.  Nothing as magical as Lion, but I remember feeling Dawn Treader was probably the most kid-friendly.

So now that you've read the book, are you going to see the movie?

That last sentence, of course, is a reference to an earlier discussion on this blog.  Leading me into today's other topic: Annie and Aunt are (is?) entering a contest. The Third Annual  Book Blogger Appreciation Week is September 13-17.  The week encourages people to explore book blogs across a range of topics, and it also gives awards to the best blogs in a variety of categories.  We are, of course, hoping to be named Best Kidlit Book Blog.  One of the requirements for entering the contest is to post our intention to do so (yes! we intend!), and to list five blog entries on which we would like to be judged.

Here they are:

Mother Goose was a Poet
The Bard of Columbus
Bravo for Frances
More on Starter Chapter Books
On Twilight. Oy.
(We figure, given how many fifth and sixth graders have been reading Twilight, that it qualifies for a younger-than-YA blog category.)

So here we go, venturing further out into the blogosphere.

Love,

Deborah