08 April 2010

Top 100 Children's Novels: 4-3



Along about eighth grade I was walking through the Waukegan Public Library when I spotted a book display the librarians had set up; one of the books was The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, by C S Lewis. It looked interesting, so I read it - then went looking for the rest of the series, of which this is the first. (The first published, that is; it's the second by internal chronology.) Since then I've reread the entire series several times, and really enjoyed the latest film version (though I haven't seen the sequel yet).

Lewis was a religious man, and a lot of people complain about the Christian symbology in these books. I personally didn't notice a thing until I got to the last book in the series, The Last Battle.

For some reason I didn't think of either this book or the next one when I submitted my top-ten list to Betsy back in January. I had this at #2 on my Top Ten prediction.






Yes, some clown decided to retitle this as Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone when it was released in the US. I was introduced to the series when my mother-in-law, having read several articles about the Harry Potter craze, borrowed the first two books (this and Chamber of Secrets) from the library in order to see what all the fuss was about. I've read all seven of them, of course (my 14-year-old daughter has read them all several times each), and have seen all but the latest movie.

I had this correctly at #3 on my Top Ten prediction. Most of the people who are commenting on Betsy's blog seem to agree with me that A Wrinkle in Time and Charlotte's Web will be in the top two slots. I had those at #4 and #1, respectively....

This is the Finnish cover; no idea who the artist was, but I'd like to see more of his/her/its work. The Ukrainian cover, as usual, is also very good, and I like the Swedish one, too.

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