By The Lion's Mane!
I totally blew my son's mind tonight. We've been reading The Chronicles of Narnia books and thoroughly enjoyed each story. Until the last one, in which Aslan wipes out Narnia and brings all the good creatures to "the real Narnia" (aka heaven). The last few pages of the book are mostly description, as C.S. Lewis paints a picture of an afterlife where everything is as perfect as you can imagine. My son was bitterly disappointed that Narnia was destroyed, and he didn't quite understand why the characters were running through the new land. I could see the wheels churning away in his mind as he tried to figure it out. When I finished reading it, he looked confused and said "What happened?" His brain hadn't caught up yet. So, I re-read the last two pages to him. He got it... The kids died in a train accident... Uh-oh... Here comes the scrunched up face, then the clenched muscles, and finally the tears. Just a few, because then he got really mad. His eyes narrowed, and he made two fists. I thought he was going to hit the wall, but instead he stuck his thumbs out and then down, and said, "Thumbs down to that!"
We talked about the fact that it was just a story, and that Peter, Lucy, Edmund, and the others weren't real people, and that it was just one man's imagination about what heaven would be like. But he wasn't having any of that. He was so furious with the author for killing those kids in that train. After a bit more discussion he had mostly calmed down, so I said goodnight and started out of the room. He stopped me, "Daddy, you take all those books out of here and throw them in the garbage!" As I picked up the box set, he then said, "Or you can sell them on eBay."
Permalink posted by Phil at 12:43 AM
7 Comments:
Oh my gosh Phil, that is so funny that he said you can sell them on ebay. I didn't even use a computer until middle school and that was only to play the Oregon Trail game. It's funny to me that little kids know all about ebay. =)
Phil, think what that says about you and your son. You've taught him to see the world in a positive light, which is good.
But now you're also teaching him that not all things go the way we expect in life. It's an important lesson that he gets to learn through fiction, which will strengthen him for when something bad happens in reality.
I'll have to remember that when Seth gets old enough to read Narnia or something similar.
He told me this morning that he wants to read more of The Boxcar Children books, which he mostly reads by himself, because "They always have a happy ending."
Smart kid.
I read the last book, hated the ending and have never read it again. So, I'm right there with him, but don't sell the set, the others are well worth rereading.
Kristin
No, no. Don't sell them on ebay. Email your fellow blogger Goob and... and...
I can't WAIT until Narnia is on screen. We're dying to see it. (I have the old British two-tape, only seen on PBS and tossed onto VHS version.)
The Chronicles of Narnia are what got me into fantasy reading and are still among my favorites. My 4th grade teacher read us Lion, Witch and Wardrobe, and I read and re-read that and all the other books in the series with no idea that it was other than a great story until high school. I tracked Mrs. Bell down and asked if she knew about all the other meanings in the books and she grinned and winked at me.
As Brett said, it's a good way to teach how not everything goes the way you expect in life, and gives even more meaning to the stories if you happen to be Christian and can help your kids spot all the other lessons within.
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