I Love KidLit

I just finished re-reading Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix in anticipation of the time I’ll be spending this weekend with the sixth book, and so am again struck by just how much I enjoy these books.

It’s funny because in the two-plus years since book 5 was released (and of course I read it all that very day) I have tended to rate it at the bottom of my favorites list – maybe just ahead of the second. But it’s good to be reminded that even if it is one of the weaker plotlines, it’s still just so good.

Among the many things that stood out to me upon reading it a second time was something I had noticed from the first reading, but I had forgotten – the way Harry suddenly has become insufferably obnoxious. This is a compliment. Rowling paints him as an actual teenager – he’s smart but acts stupidly out of rash certainty, he flies off the handle without reason, and he’s entirely self-absorbed. It’s tough to read at times, but how I admire how well crafted he is as a character. Can’t wait for Friday night.

But much as I love Harry Potter, I’ve recently seen a couple previews for a movie based on some “children’s literature” that I think I like even more. Well, maybe not. In fact it’s been years since I’ve read CS Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia, but those books are incredibly special to me. I think my mom read them to me, first. And I know I read them again in fourth grade and at least the first few again in high school, when I was working on a longer CS Lewis project.

It’s more than that they were just great stories, more than that they have meaning far beyond the grasp of any of the kids who mainly read the books. It’s because Narnia started me off as a writer.

In fourth grade we had an assignment to make books. Now, it was probably as much about the actual making and binding of the book as it was what we chose to write or draw inside, but I was quite enchanted with the idea. I decided to write a sequel to the existing books of Narnia. But I had too much I wanted to write. I was not to be deterred. I found three other people in the class and delegated to them basic ideas I had for stories. I didn’t write the stories for them, but I told them what needed to happen. (See, I’ve always been an editor.) And then I wrote the final installment.

(Turns out this story is slightly embarrassing.)

Anyway, that was the first time I have a specific memory of plotting and writing a story. Probably I wrote some kinds of stories before that. But the Narnia sequels are what I always remember as my first foray into fiction, and almost certainly the first of which a copy still remains.

Anyway, the preview looks pretty good for the first movie. (Are they really going to make a movie of each book?!?) I really hope they don’t screw these up. It would be much harder for me to make movies of my own than it was to make those books in fourth grade.