The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe

As you undoubtedly know, The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe movie came out today. The reviews have been pretty good, particularly the one in the Chronicle. Little man jumping out of the chair.

This pleases me greatly. The trailer for the movie has been attached to a bunch of movies that I've seen in the last few months -- Harry Potter, Zathura, Chicken Little, Revenge of the Sith, The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Capote. It wasn't very good. It was kind of a cross between Lord of the Rings and the Sound of Music with an overlay of Lion King self-righteousness. Yuck.

The trailer was very disappointing to me because I always really liked the book. In fact, I think that it was the first chapter book that I ever really read on my own. It was in fourth grade, in Mr. Shaver's class.

Third grade had pretty much been a nightmare due to a really over-the-top teacher who did things like separating the class into "flowers" and "weeds" and dissecting gophers that the janitor killed in class and making kids sit in their seats until they peed in their pants if they didn't ask to go to the bathroom just right. The little girl I had a crush on developed an ulcer. She was eight at the time. My two best friends left the school that year. Not the class, the school, because we only had one class per grade at my elementary school. One came back to the school in fourth grade, one did not. I distinctly remember the one who came back in fourth grade being dragged from the "flowers" to the "weeds" in his desk, crying. So third grade wasn't too hot.

So we get to fourth grade and it was really good. Mr. Shaver was this huge guy, about 6'4", very solidly built (not fat). He drove around in a VW Bug. He was into computers -- Apple II's, man! He somehow acquired a VCR at Island Elementary in 1979. The thing was as big as a server is now. He volunteered at the local public television station, so sometimes you would see him working the phones during a pledge drive. Just a cool guy. Mr. Slinger in Lilly's Purple Plastic Purse by Kevin Henkes always reminds me of Mr. Shaver. Anyway, at one point -- probably to get me to stop asking him questions (I've always been something of a pest) -- he gave me the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe to read.

Now the Muse thinks that the book is really too serious to be a great kids' book. I came at it, though, after having my brain wired from some good vs. evil stories by Star Wars (Empire Strikes Back didn't come out until the following summer, so I wasn't really wired for ambiguity yet) and I thought that the book was just great. Kids finding an unexplained portal into a place with half-humans/half-animals? Good. Kids fighting an evil witch? Good. Aslan dying and coming back? Good. Plus a cartoon version of it came out at roughly the same time that I read it. Man, you can't get any better than that.

The book's all tied up with fourth grade in my mind. I was thus quite disturbed when the trailer was not very good. Now apparently the movie is pretty good. Whew. And Enthusio wants to see it. Man, bonding with your boy over two fictional tales of your youth in one year. That's good.