Everything about this series is icky. I just finished reading them to my son, and by the end of the Last Battle I just wanted to forget I had ever opened them. I'm interested in seeing your take on them if you bother to read that far.

Not to be pedantic (wait, yes, totally being pedantic), but leo ex machina is more correct.

I never read cs lewis but I will have for my little one. BTW my daughter was 6 yrs old and we discussed slavery and segregation and we will discuss it again it is part of Our history.

Deus ex leo would be translated as "god from the lion". It has more logic than "lion from the machine" in my opinion

It's adorable that you read this to your son.

V wrote: "I never read cs lewis but I will have for my little one. BTW my daughter was 6 yrs old and we discussed slavery and segregation and we will discuss it again it is part of Our history."

Yeah. I talked with him about it. It's important to talk about it. But I don't necessarily want to bring that ugliness into his head right now, any more than I want to explain lynchings or pedophilia.

I want him to spend a long time innocent of these things, thinking people are good.

My worry is that if I explain them now, he'll think, "Huh, sometimes people own other people."

What I want is to tell him later, with the hope that he'll say, on his own, "What the hell? That's wrong!"

I'm not saying it's the only way. It's just my current strategy.

But the phrase comes from plays, where the conflict would be resolved by a god suddenly being dropped into the action by the theatrical machinery. A sudden appearance of Aslan would be a lion suddenly showing up, thus lion from the machine. God from the lion is pretty much meaningless cause they're both the same God. V wrote: "I never read cs lewis but I will have for my little one. BTW my daughter was 6 yrs old and we discussed slavery and segregation and we will discuss it again it is part of Our history."

I'm not judging of course I know schools don't tackle that part of history until later. Get ready for 4th grade!!! :)

I had the same reaction to Swiss Family Robinson. I loved that book as a child and it captured my imagination.

As an adult, I went back to re-read and couldn't get through it, it was so deeply sexist and saturated in religious dogma. And their landing spot ...! penguins and monkeys and lions and animals off every continent. Really, it must have formed like a clump of hair in the drain of the world, catching all the debris that swirled on in there...including this religious dude, his wife, and their hellspawn...and an appropriately aged young lady just about old enough to breed to the oldest hellspawn...

The thing I try to keep in mind is that it was the grotto that captured my imagination and had me staring off into space daydreaming. None of the things I loathed as an adult really even registered - so much so that it blindsided me when I went back to it. The same (mostly) applied for the Narnian Chronicles. I'm a big re-reader, and it has made it a little hard to return to some of my childhood loves, for fear of what I'll find in there and what beautiful bubble that captured my imagination will be suddenly dissolved.

I try to remember this when I recommend books for kids at the library. I know that they blast right by the things that jump out at us as adults. They're in the pursuit of the story and their imagination, where adults are often in search for nuance and meaning. The little diorama's that stay in our heads forever (the lamppost in the forest, the first view of Hogwarts, the grotto with its pink stalagmites... ) are not warped or altered by the bad things that happen in the story, or the weird perspectives of the writers. Kids seem to have an innate acceptance that this is just part of the story and that world, and the next book will have a different world.

That said, I can't speak to their subconscious, of course, or my own. The only thing I can say is that as a kid, I read all kinds of crazy crap, but still followed the example set by my mother and regardless of what I learned elsewhere that girls and boys were "supposed" to do, I (as far as I remember) still did what I liked. I adopted plenty of "boyish" roles in playing with my friends (the prince who rescues the damsel, the chief of the tribe (it was the 70's, don't judge), the survivalist. I will say that I thought, in the back of my head, "only boys do that" but I still shucked the rules in favor of doing what I wanted. Maybe that's the lesson we're meant to learn? We look at our parents and follow their examples in the way that best suits us and then we move that forward in our own way. Regardless of what he reads and retains, you are still still the lens through which he sees the world and your actions and words have the most impact (till he hits tweens and decides he knows everything, right? lol).

So with that in mind, this review feels more sad for you than the Kiddo - you just had a favorite childhood fantasy world dented and squashed a bit by adult awareness. Such a drag. :(

I've always had a strained relationship with the whole Narnia series. I remember crying in disappointment when I was little after reading The Last Battle. I cried for Susan, knowing that she was being punished for being a girl. What I took from it was that I was somehow expected to transcend my gender, something that was even more reinforced given that I grew up Mormon. Reading these books as a non-religious person it feels uncomfortable and bits are a bit icky. But reading them as a religious personal already suffering a gender and identity crisis was heartbreaking!

I too am revisiting the Narnia series which was my introduction to Fantasy as a child. I just finished The Horse and His Boy and there was so much sexism and racism in there. I recognize that it was a product of its time, but it has not aged well. I agree that these books may be a good tool to discuss these concepts with kids, but not when they are way too young and innocent.

'deus ex leo' - you really cracked me up with this one!

Applying 21st century Madison, WI morals before rating a book, especially a 60 year old British book is, um, I'll be kind - interesting.

Maybe 50 years from now we'll consider authors who used the F-word ignorant pigs.

I do see the point. Yesterday I felt myself out of comfort zone to read Hansel and Gretel to my children. But sometimes I wonder, what will happen if we will avoid all old and "wrong" classics. I have no answer but tend to think it is better to read and explain.

Ugh my least favorite of the 7.

If we're really going to argue over the Latin phrasing, it should probably be "deus ex leone," because the Latin uses the ablative case version of machina, not the nominative, but that's not really here nor there, is it?

I see everyone's point! Saying that, after you learn & see lot's of Disney movies, do you take your children to see them? Of course you do! As a child you usually DON'T see what an adult does nor do you need to @6!! As an adult reading it again you don't remember those parts you read as a child being there but as an adult (zero innocence there) you see them all over the place!

I just read this series for the first time and seeing you (one of my favourite writers of all time) reviewing it with almost my exact thoughts feels relieving.

In my opinion the problem is, setting aside the anachronism of reading that book with today's morals, that the religious background is far too obvious. The kids don't do anything ever, they're only succesful and rewarded if they abide by Aslan's teachings. That doesn't work for a book when you're adult

Linda A. Giles wrote: "I see everyone's point! Saying that, after you learn & see lot's of Disney movies, do you take your children to see them? Of course you do! As a child you usually DON'T see what an adult does nor d..."

Nope. I don't take my kids to Disney movies. Because they're full of horrifying shit. The fact that the kids can't see it makes it worse, not better.

Philip Pullman's "His Dark Materials" trilogy: the anti-Narnia!

You mean those older Disney movies, right? Because the new ones, like Wreck-It Ralph and Zootopia, are pretty great, especially for children.

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I was never allowed to read /watch any of the Narnia books or play/tv program/films etc, when I was a child because my father hated them . He believed rightly or wrongly that they would fill my head with rubbish and were not worth spending his money on. I know not why. Maybe he had views like yours or maybe it was more to do with his loathing of anything not 'real' anything slightly 'fairy tailish' was not allowed to fill my head with rubbish and that included anything by Disney too. But I do remember him complaining about the Narnia books being sexist and politically incorrect. I went on to be a complete bookworm who loves fantasy and sci fi so not everything my father wanted for me to be came true. Guess he lived in his own fairy tail. I liked the part of the first Narnia book our teacher read at school but unfortunately I moved schools so never read it all and now I might buy all the books and binge read just to see what the fuss was about for myself.

The fact my father refused to let me have my head filled with fairy and Disney did not stop me from watching it with friends and I have taken my kids to the Disney films they wanted to see which has not been many , I believe everything I was protected from made me obsess with all the things I was not allowed to do parents need to find a balance protection is often more dangerous than allowing a child to have knowledge of the dark side . After all there is cookies at the dark side and also look at Adam and Eve with the forbidden Apple . I allowed my kids to read /see that which I was not allowed and they have grown into much more balanced adults than me.

What matters is not the media they consume, it's the example you, as a parent, set for them at home.

It's who YOU are as a person and a parent and that has the biggest impact on a child and how they develop.

Protecting them from things with which they simply won't understand by virtue of having no history of such to draw upon, certainly won't hurt them, but it won't help them either. You aren't saving them from bad life lessons or poor world views, you're just gating off knowledge that they will learn eventually anyway.

I think everything can be used as a great learning experience for children. Give them the chance to think about certain issues and provide that conduit for open ended and unbiased discussion.

It's okay for them to be scared or hurt or worried. In fact. I'd go so far as to say it is necessary sometimes.

That being said. It's your child. Raise them as you see fit (obviously).

Michael wrote: "What matters is not the media they consume, it's the example you, as a parent, set for them at home.

It's who YOU are as a person and a parent and that has the biggest impact on a child and how t..."

When you say that they'll eventually learn that knowledge anyway, the major difference is that they'll be more capable of processing what they learn later. For instance, as Joss Whedon says, the reason he's a feminist is that throughout his childhood, the notion that men and women might be fundamentally different wasn't allowed to enter his head.

"Several times they're confronted by bad situations or make bad choices but then instead of having to deal with the consequences or figure out solutions, Aslan shows up and is all ಠ_ಠ. Then, under the weight of his disappointed dad eyes and they're filled with shame and realize they should stop being dicks."

Like it or not, I feel like this experience is something kids can really latch onto and identify with. It seems pretty clear that Lewis is basically dramatizing the process of making a moral choice. The kids are confronted with a dilemma, consult their particular avatar of right vs. wrong, and come up with the right choice. It even works outside of a religious context: Aslan could represent their conscience as easily as their God. The very clear nature of the parables might read as obvious to us, but in my experience, kids tend to enjoy connecting the dots on those sort of things.

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In regard to your criticism of Aslan's "stepping in" when the children falter, do you not consider C.S. Lewis' aim to reflect Jesus' character through the lion?

When I read of Aslan's interventions, I find myself inspired (as a Christian) that I am not perfect and mistakes are unavoidable, though Jesus walks with me constantly and give me strength/encouragement, and even allows me many times to experience my shortfalls. He is highly relational and does guide me through life. I find this to me the most utmost theme of the series.

^