DailySusan Humor Blog

CHRONICLES OF MADDY-A

Classic literature is coming alive on the silver screen and blowing out the violent, oversexed, R-rated trash flicks in the box office. “Pride and Prejudice” has been a huge hit recently, and “The Chronicles of Narnia” is No. 1 right now.

Woo hoo! It makes me do my “I told you so” strut. A few years ago, I butted heads with a left-wing English teacher in a local middle school over the crummy books the school was assigning to the kids instead of classic books like these.

She said today’s audiences don’t find the classics interesting or relevant. Riiiiiiiight. How many kajillions have movies like “Narnia” made in recent years?

Our heated discussion took place after I had quietly opted my daughter out of the rotten, R-rated contemporary novel she had assigned in seventh grade English class, and substituted the famous C.S. Lewis “Narnia” book that now is thrilling audiences worldwide. She thought I was hopelessly out of step with what kids need to be reading.

So there! I hope she gets it by now.

But maybe the “Narnia” magic, fantasy and excitement has gone a bit too far. Maddy, 5, received not one but two age-appropriate “Narnia” books at Christmastime and has loved them. Yesterday, she was busy at her little table on a worksheet sent home from kindergarten. She was writing a row of “8’s” for practice. She showed them to me. One had a tiny upstroke on the top.

“This one’s a unicorn 8,” she informed me.

Now, that’s a character not even C.S. Lewis thought up.