Z for Zachariah

While looking through a box of old books from my childhood, I found a dystopian YA novel written long before dystopian YA Novels were A Thing. I read Z for Zachariah in year 8 for English, the year when we really started learning about Literature in earnest. My teacher was Mrs Leppard, and she split the class up into small groups to read and discuss one of a selection of science fiction and speculative fiction. Animal Farm, was one of the others on offer. I remember sitting with three other kids in the cloakroom or the library - (Jo Holt, Sam Irving and one other - possibly Mark Harrison) feeling, even then, that this was what it was to be a student.

Written in the 1970s, Z for Zachariah is set after a nuclear war wipes out masses of the population - perhaps most of the world, perhaps just a region. It is written as the diary of a teenage girl, Ann, whose family farm in a valley has escaped contamination. Her family ventured out of the valley to investigate, and were never seen again. With only the company of her dog, Faro, and the cows and chickens, Ann survives by farming and with resources from the nearby store. Then, one day, a stranger comes to the valley, dressed in a radiation suit. Although Ann is wary of the newcomer at first, she comes to his aid when he becomes sick from swimming in a contaminated stream, and they strike up a tentative friendship. But can he really be trusted?

I had very vivid memories of the first half of Z for Zachariah from reading it at thirteen; we spent several lessons reading the novel slowly, and discussing it, and I still, seventeen years on, could picture Ann's valley, her day-to-day life living without electricity in one green place surrounded by dead land. I recalled the arrival of John Loomis, her wariness of him, his sickness and Ann nursing him back to health. But I think we didn't have enough lessons - or perhaps we got sidetracked in our small groups - to read the entire novel, and the ending was more vague. I probably didn't understand all of what was being implied, or why Loomis went from being an ally to a threat one night. And I remember hurrying through the last chapters on the last day of term, so that I could hand my school book back to my teacher. (I since bought a copy in a charity shop or used bookstore, but hadn't reread it until yesterday.) But it lingered with me. There is a real sense of claustrophobia, when Ann is hiding in the valley. She can't leave, because there is only one radiation suit and Loomis guards it jealously. He gradually proves to be a complex and chilling character, a dangerous control freak, and Ann is trapped with him with no one else for miles around - or further - or anywhere.

Even now, in a bookish landscape full of apocalypses and dystopias, Z For Zachariah stands apart from the rest. It is effective in its simplicity: no totalitarian governments to bring down, no factions, hunger games or political intrigue, just two people in one little corner of the world, trying to survive.

January mini-reviews: The Tree of Seasons, Galaxy Quest, Pride

I took a trip to nearby Ryde a couple of weeks ago to explore the big bookshop there, and spent a good hour browsing all the rooms and nooks (and being plunged into darkness at one point when the electricians didn't see me hiding in a corner.) I'm sure I've written about Ryde bookshop before. The front part houses the new books, and then you go through a door to the labyrinth behind: three stories of second-hand books: genre fiction and travel at the back, general fiction lining the halls and stairways, and several rooms for children's books and non-fiction of every genre imaginable. I always feel that you can get lost in "L-Space" in a shop like that, take a wrong turning and you might end up in another bookshop in another town. After much deliberation, I bought A Place Called Winter new, and a couple of science fiction novels. 

On the way back to the bus stop, I wandered into a charity shop where I found myself confronted with another name from my childhood: my first celebrity crush, Boyzone singer Stephen Gately, with whom I was embarrassingly besotted during my early teens (don't judge me!) Although I hadn't thought of him for years, it still came as a shock in the autumn of 2009 when Stephen died at the age of just 33. (You might remember  that marking another landmark in the "how low can they go" history of the rag known as the Daily Mail when they published a really hateful article insinuating that instead of suffering the hitherto unknown heart condition diagnosed by the coronors, Stephen basically Died Of Gay.) Anyway, he was writing a children's book at the time - I read somewhere that he was very much against the use of ghostwriters, although the book was ultimately finished off for him from his notes and probably edited a lot - and it was this book, The Tree of Seasons, which I found in the Cancer Research shop on a 2 for £1 deal.

The Tree of Seasons is a rather charming fairy tale, evoking the feeling of endless summer found in Enid Blyton, Narnia, The Hounds of the Morrigan and others. Three siblings, Josh, Michael and Beth Lotts, go exploring in the forbidden woods behind their great-aunt's house, and find within a tree a portal to four magical kingdoms, each controlling a season of the year. But all is not as it should be; the ruler of the autumn kingdom has been overthrown by an evil witch whose influence is spreading out into the world beyond. It is up to the Lotts children to stop her. The plot is a fairly conventional story of the genre, a McGuffin-hunt, with good and evil characters, peril and unlikely friendship. But the world-building is immersive, atmospheric and poetic, the book a joyful celebration of nature. 

On the subject of famous people I like dying, 2015 was a notorious year, with the loss of Leonard Nimoy, Sir Terry Pratchett, Sir Christopher Lee and the actor who played "Gilbert Blythe," Jonathan Crombie. We're only at the end of January but already 2016 is almost matching last year, adding David Bowie and Alan Rickman to that list within about three days of each other, and yesterday I woke up to the news of TV and radio personality Terry Wogan's death as well, all three from cancer. My local radio station has been playing even more Bowie songs than usual, and of course that week I rewatched one of my favourite films from my teens, Labyrinth. It was harder to choose just one of Rickman's films to remember him by: Harry Potter or Robin Hood? Die Hard or Sense and Sensibility? But I went with Galaxy Quest, the affectionate Star Trek spoof described by George Takei as "a chillingly realistic documentary," in which a once-great sci-fi cast, who relive (or endlessly suffer through) their glory days on the convention circuit, get mistaken for real-life space heroes by a race of aliens in desperate need of help. Rickman's performance as the self-loathing thespian (who is never without his alien prosthetic headgear) is a thing of beauty, the film is gloriously quotable, poking fun at all that is ridiculous about the likes of Star Trek, while also celebrating what has made it endure for half a century. As an  honorary entry in the Trek canon, I'd rank it second only to The Wrath of Khan (tied with The One With The Whales.)

After Ellie emailed me to tell me she'd bought and watched one of my more recent favourite films, Pride, I got so excited about her discovering it for the first time that I needed to rewatch it again. And again (twice in two nights.) I could quite easily reach the end and go straight back to the beginning yet again, if I didn't stop myself. It's quite rare for me to find a film so good I don't want it to end; no matter how good a movie might be, normally once it's passed the 90 minute mark I tend to find my attention wandering a little until the climax. Pride is one of those British comedies about unlikely people achieving big things against all the odds, like Billy Elliot and The Full Monty. It's set during the miners' strike of 1984-1985, and based on true events, when a group of gay men and women from London pledge their support for a Welsh mining community. Strong friendships are built between these two very different groups of people. The script is spot-on, uplifting, with a ready wit, and acted by a stellar cast of big names, such as Imelda Staunton, Bill Nighy and Paddy Considine and relative newcomers like Ben Schnetzer, George MacKay and Faye Marsay. It is an absolute joy to spend a couple of hours in the company of these warm-hearted characters.* We see them grow and change as we become acquainted with them, from activist Mark Ashton, to still-closeted young Joe ("Bromley") to Bill Nighy's character Cliff, on first appearances a rather uncomfortable, stern gentleman but who, we come to discover, has a poetic soul, a deep abiding passion for the coal that is at the heart of his homeland, and secrets he's held for decades. Imelda Staunton as matriarch Hefina is magnificent (she must surely banish any thoughts of Professor Umbridge in this role.) Andrew Scott, who you might know as the gleefully evil Moriarty from the BBC's Sherlock, shows a contrasting subtlety in his portrayal of gentle bookseller Gethin, while Dominic West plays Gethin's partner Jonathan, a flamboyant but not cliched actor with secret battles of his own. The film ends with captions of "What happened next," a bittersweet mixture of sadness and triumph, and one simple sentence about Jonathan is particularly sweet.

Pride was an instant addition to my top films of all time; it is perhaps as close as you can get to the perfect film. It tackles difficult subjects with an illusion of ease, is by turns moving, inspiring, and hilarious. You'll laugh, you'll cry tears of sadness but more of joy and mirth. The ultimate feel-good film. Oh dear, I might have to go and watch it again.

*because, although many are based on real people, some of whom were interviewed in the extras and extraordinarily well cast, by nature of being written into a drama, they are characters nonetheless.) 

Sunday Summary (19/4/15)

I was making plans for this post as I walked home from work yesterday evening; it was going to be a Five Things That Made Me Happy This Week theme. Then I logged onto the internet to find that Death had visited yet another one of my "safe" places, a story world which shaped my very being, this time taking Canadian actor Jonathan Crombie, who was best known as Gilbert Blythe in Anne of Green Gables. It seems Mr Crombie passed away this week from a brain haemorrhage at the age of 48. (Younger, I could not help observing, than Gilbert was in Rilla of Ingleside. That's not right.)

It's not easy for someone to satisfy me as the romantic love interest of a story which has had my heart since I was eight years old, but as soon as I saw Crombie as Gilbert, there could be no other. ** I only knew of Mr Crombie from that one role, but what a role it was, and how well he fitted it! I had fantasies of bringing him and Megan Follows back to the world of Anne if ever I was to finish my screenplay of Rilla of Ingleside and get it turned into a miniseries. And of course, my condolences go out to his family and loved ones.

But onto happier subjects. Despite the best efforts of Royal Mail, my Ninja Book Swap parcel finally turned up this week, and in fact its sender was the same person I'd sent my parcel to: Sarah in Ottawa. I have to say Bex and Hanna did a wonderful job of pairing us up; Sarah is brilliant; I follow her on Tumblr, and she is one of my favourite posters on there. *waves fangirl flag.* She sent me two books: The Night Guest by Fiona McFarlane, and The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick. I can't wait to read them, and because they came from overseas, they are different editions to the ones I've seen in this country and very pretty! Also included in the parcel were a postcard, a cardboard Bookmobile - she's studying to be a library technician - which is on my bookshelf, a Book Nerd badge (which I've added to the collection on my favourite customised bag) and an Anne of Green Gables poster! (Have I mentioned how much I love Anne? Maybe once or twice? A week? Since I was eight?) Thank you so much, Sarah!

On Friday I went over to Southsea to see a touring production of Return to the Forbidden Planet, which is a rock'n'roll musical loosely based on Shakespeare's The Tempest and set in space! In 1999, when I was thirteen and in my last year of middle school (because we used to have middle schools on the Isle of Wight) this was our school play, and it has so much nostalgia for me. If I looked back at my diaries (which I have long since destroyed) I suspect that I'd find it was a difficult time of teenage angst, the pains of unrequited crushes and being a relatively unpopular kid, but my abiding memories of that summer are of long sunny days, an innocent time, and not being quite so lonely as I would be in high school, when my little group of friends ended up going our separate ways. Ours was far from being a perfect production. We had a parent in to play Prospero, the lead, and adult musicians (including my dad on the guitar.) One of the leads could not sing, could not act, and could not even be heard, and was probably cast in a prominent role entirely due to being the biggest boy in the school. But it was the most fun I've had in a school play, even just being in the chorus, shoved off to one side of the stage, and I was madly in love with a boy called Sam, who had long eyelashes and danced with me once out of pity at a school disco. Even now, if I hear most of the songs on the radio, they automatically make me smile: "Teenager in Love," "Great Balls of Fire," "Good Vibrations" or "She's Not There," to name but a few.

But none of this could compare to sitting in the King's Theatre and hearing the songs combined with mangled Shakespeare, dreadful puns, ...enthusiastic... accents. This felt like the proper context for these songs. The cast were magnificent, especially those playing Cookie, the ship's cook with an unrequited crush on Miranda (daughter of mad scientist Prospero) and the robot Ariel (a combination of Ariel and Caliban from the original Tempest). The music was played by the cast, a very multi-talented group. And the casting of "Chorus" - the pre-recorded narrator - was a stroke of genius in the context of a rock musical about space: Brian May from Queen.

Watching Return to the Forbidden Planet from the audience, I realised how much I hadn't quite appreciated as a chorus member. I still knew the songs inside out (although this [production had a couple of substitutions, as well as reinstating one or two that had been on the soundtrack cassette I have since, regrettably, lost, but which we had not used. But the plot still managed to surprise me in some places, where I had not been present for the acting rehearsals, or our cast had played things differently (and, I suspect, slightly bowdlerised) or the things I'd simply forgotten. And now I have sixteen years' extra Shakespeare knowledge and two of Star Trek fandom. I played a mental game of "identify the original quote" throughout the show, and was astonished that the "Live long and Prospero" line I'd thought was an ad-lib in the school play, was in fact in the script. I suppose you couldn't not put it in. All in all, I had an evening of tremendous fun and nostalgia, boogieing away to my heart's content in my chair by the end. I can recommend going to see Forbidden Planet if it comes to your town.

* and, if you insist, also in "The Continuing Story," if you wish to acknowledge that one's existence. As far as I'm concerned, it occupies the Pit of Oblivion alongside Star Trek Generations and the live-action Thunderbirds movie. Or would, if any of these things existed!

**The webseries Green Gables Fables, which is a modern-day vlog adaptation of Anne does a pretty good job with its casting too. I was slow to be won over to GGF, but somewhere along the line I came to love it, and to love the new generation of fangirls to discuss the Anne books and adaptations with in the sort of minute detail that I love. This was, after all, why I started this blog in the first place.

Sunday Summary: Goodbye winter, and good riddance

Hello to you all.

I know I talk a lot about the weather in these blog posts, but what can I say? I'm British. I've spent the last few days really savouring the sunshine, when I've not been at work. It's been lovely to get home when it's still daylight, to go out without a coat, and to sit in the garden or the park with just my book and a cup of coffee (I'm not that British) for company. I'm reading one of Neil Gaiman's short story collections, Smoke and Mirrors, and reading that in the sunshine to the soundtrack of birdsong makes me feel like I'm waking from hibernation. After last year, when winter went on until the end of May, I can barely believe it. We've made it through another winter. There should be badges for that.

I decided this year to give up buying books for Lent, but this week I bought two last books: The Martian by Andy Weir, and Alexander McCall Smith's latest No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency novel, The Minor Adjustment Beauty Salon. I've also borrowed The Never List by Koethi Zan from the staffroom mini-library, although from what I gather I have to be in the right mood for that one as it's supposedly pretty gruesome and disturbing. The Alexander McCall Smith books are the opposite: they are very sweet stories set in Botswana, easy to read in an afternoon, philosophical but ultimately a celebration of what it is to be human. The Martian is a new science fiction book that has been whispered about in several parts of the internet, (Sarah reviewed it here) and I bought it in hardback because I couldn't wait to see what all the fuss is about. After Shine, Shine, Shine, An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth and most recently, James Smythe's excellent The Explorer, I can't get enough of the space stuff!

It's been busy at work this week, thanks to World Book Day, when all the kids dress up as their favourite fictional characters, and they also get a £1 book token. I don't know if the book fairs still come round to the schools: three metal fold-up bookcases in the school hall or library, where I acquired my first two-in-one Famous Five books, and later, The Cafe Club and Fiona Kelly's Mystery Kids. I remember dressing up as (of course) Anne Shirley (of Green Gables) when I was about nine, wearing a blue-and-white checked dress, straw boater hat, pigtails and felt-tip-pen freckles. I was not, however, allowed to dye my hair red. It would probably have been as successful as Anne's attempt.

I went to see the Lego Movie last night, which was completely ridiculous, but so much fun. I went into the Lego Movie without knowing much about it, and that's the best way to see it so I won't say much about it. But I recommend it for everyone - kids and parents and nostalgic adults, and definitely for those who insist on keeping each set distinct and separate. (Shudder!) The movie is a celebration of imagination, creation and play, with plenty to geek out about. ("Spaceship!") Everything is Awesome! (And try getting that theme song out of your head. You won't be able to do it.)

I did a little fangirl squeal when the Lego Movie included a tiny, blink-and-you'll-miss-it reference to Fabuland, a long-forgotten Lego town peopled by animal characters, bigger than the usual minifigures, and who made up most of the inhabitants of the Lego world of my childhood. There were storybooks. They had personalities. Most of the Fabuland characters had different names from those they were officially given, and for many years my headcanon was that Edward the Elephant was married to Bonita Bunny, who had two human children, Judith and Jeremy. I was little. I didn't know, or care, about how biology worked, and who's to say what the rules are in the Lego world, anyway? I loved my Lego, and made it my own. I don't know anyone else who remembers the Fabuland creatures. That range ran for 10 years, but was discontinued shortly after I was given my sets, but it has such personal memories for me. This wasn't the Lego that takes up whole walls of the toy shops and has its very own theme parks. This was my childhood, my version of Lego - mine, my own, my precioussss...

My 27th birthday present of Lord of the Rings Lego compares only with my 3rd birthday when I was given that first bucket. I still have it; it lives by my bookcase. I think it once got put away in the attic, but like my Enid Blyton books, I couldn't keep it up there for long.

Top Ten Tuesdays: Bookish memories.

Another top ten that I simply could not resist writing about. There is more to books than merely the story inside the books. So many of my fondest memories are associated with books. So, without any further ado:

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted at The Broke and the Bookish.

1. 1988. Honestly, I don't remember a time when I couldn't read. The first memory on my list is not actually my own, but my mother's. At the age of three, my parents were woken up in the middle of the night, by the sound of me in the next room, reading Goldilocks and the Three Bears aloud. Before I started primary school, I had got myself known as "Katie who can read" (which, incidentally is my twitter nickname if you want to follow!)

2. 1990-ish. My first school's reading scheme books were the Biff, Chip and Kipper series published by Oxford. These are very much of the "This is Biff. Biff has a football. This is Chip. Biff and Chip play football." sort of standard, progressing to more complex sentences and even stories. One day I came into school very apologetic that I couldn't read all of the words. When I pointed to the page, the teachers realised that I had been trying to read the "additional notes for parents" section at the back of the book, and decided that perhaps I ought to move onto more challenging reading. I was devastated. I didn't want to read books that weren't about Biff, Chip and Kipper. Clearly I was very attached to these, erm, characters.

3. 1990-1998-ish. Who else remembers the travelling bookshops that used to visit primary schools? For a week, the school hall or library would be filled with huge metal boxes that would open up to display their ink-and-paper treasures for sale. I discovered so many beloved stories here: my first Famous Five omnibuses came from here, as did Fiona Kelly's Mystery Kids and Ann Bryant's Cafe Club. This was the highlight of my school year.

4. 1993-1996ish. Anne of Green Gables was a birthday present from my parents, and probably I haven't received a more suitable gift until last year's Lego Mines of Moria. One of my family friends has fond memories of me sitting cross-legged rereading Anne while wearing a straw sunhat and my hair in pigtails. For Book Week, we used to dress up as book characters, and I remember exactly what I wore as Anne - a long blue checked dress, the aforementioned straw hat with a navy blue ribbon, pigtails with matching ribbons and felt-tipped freckles. My mother wouldn't let me dye my hair, though.

5. 1992-ish. One evening, when I was about seven, my dad sat me and my sister down in the living room a little before bedtime, took out a book, and started to read aloud: "There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it." An excellent opening to an excellent book. I was hooked from the beginning, and even more so when I realised that the Edmund and Lucy were the same as the characters of the same names in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. I hadn't realised that there was any more to that story. Over the next couple of months, or years, Dad or Mum would read us a chapter from all of the Chronicles of Narnia and the Swallows and Amazons series every night as a bedtime story.

6. 1998-ish. Discos were the popular form of birthday party when I was in years 7 and 8 (aged 11-13) but the most memorable one (except for my one-and-only slow dance with Sam Irving, who I semi-stalked for the rest of the school year - sorry Sam!) was nothing to do with the disco at all. It was held in a room above a pub (The Bargeman's Rest, which I highly recommend if you are looking for somewhere to eat on the Isle of Wight.)  There was a shelf of second-hand books for sale, which included a few out-of-print Chalet School paperbacks from the 1970s, which I was quick to notice and charmed my parents into buying for me. I still have these, except for one which has since fallen to bits and been replaced.

7. 1999. Harry Potter had been in the world for a few years, but only recently become big. Suddenly it was the name on everyone's lips. Over-protective parents had been concerned by even more over-protective parents who denounced the series as witchcraft, and my sister's school required a permission slip from parents for the children to check the books out of the library. I was at high school by that point, and my friend Lara was reading Prisoner of Azkaban. My father bought a copy of the first three books to see for himself if he thought they were suitable for children, but   he left them lying around in the living room, where anyone could pick them up. And by "anyone," I mean me. From the very first sentence, I was hooked. "Mr and Mrs Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say they were perfectly normal, thank you very much." Thus began an adventure that would continue for many years, many rereads, and an awful lot of speculation.

8. 2001-2003. My sixth form years will forever be associated with one thing: The Lord of the Rings. Until the first film trailer, Lord of the Rings was one of those weighty tomes that lived on every bookshelf but people didn't actually read - did they? I associated it with War and Peace. Then I saw the trailer before the first Harry Potter film, and decided that actually, it looked quite interesting. The first movie was released on the last day of the Christmas term, and the year 11 teachers booked a screening at Cineworld for the entire year group. I left the cinema and took down the weighty tome; I simply had to know what happened next. For the next two or three years I lived and breathed Lord of the Rings. My abiding memory of sixth form is of my circle of friends hogging the squashy chairs in the library, reading and rereading Lord of the Rings, talking about Lord of the Rings, writing Lord of the Rings fanfiction... you get the picture. And for the first time, I felt like I fitted in. I've always been a person with obsessions, and for once other people, even some of the cool people, shared my obsession.  I found my niche and could for the first time revel in being a nerd, instead of being ashamed of who I was and conspicuously failing to fit in.

9. 2007. When I arrived home from university, by some chance I discovered that me, my best friend Judith and two other friends (Cat and James, then a couple) had all been reading the same book series: Robin Hobb's Assassin series. So we decided to hold an informal book club - which consisted of going to the pub, beginning discussing where we had got to in the series, predictions and opinions, and generally wandering off-topic more often than not. I recall one summer evening taking wine and cheese to a picnic area near the beach and very much not discussing the books, but nonetheless, book club it remained. Alas, now Cat and James are no longer on speaking terms or living near us, but Judith and I from time to time revive the old book club, recently reading American Gods and last year working our way through A Song of Ice and Fire. And a healthy amount of wine.

10. Present. I confess I find it very enjoyable to watch other people's reactions to big moments in books I've already read. Last year in our aforementioned Song of Ice and Fire readathon, there were a couple of times I got ahead of Judith, and it was with a certain amount of smugness that I listened to her speculations about what was going to happen next. She began reading a certain chapter (those who have read it will know which chapter I am referring to, while those who are going to are none the wiser) one afternoon when we were at the beach. She put the book down halfway through that chapter, and did not resume until three days later! The suspense was almost as unbearable as the incident in question. I was waiting for her anguished "MARTIN!!!!" text message for three days. And when it finally arrived, it was very satisfying indeed. Mark Oshiro's blog Mark Reads is great for that, as he goes into popular books with no prior knowledge, reviewing them one chapter at a time. The comments, too, make for excellent in-depth discussion of the books in question, but read them at your own risk. 

TV: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (1988)

They don't make kids' TV like they used to. Fact.

The Lion...

As a child, I watched very little television indeed, but perhaps that made the programmes and dramas I did watch all the more special. In particular, I have a soft spot for the old Sunday night dramas the BBC used to show in the run-up to Christmas: six-part adaptations of classic children's literature. The Phoenix and the Carpet was one, and The Borrowers ran to two series, which remained buried deep enough in my subconscious that on my first viewing of Lord of the Rings, many years later, I saw Ian Holm's Bilbo Baggins and my brain screamed "IT'S POD!" But no drama can live up to The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. I would have been just about three, and almost certainly this would have been my first encounter with the story, but I have no memories of seeing it for the first time. I've just always known that story.

In later years, we had a taped-off-the-TV video of an animated adaptation, which now I think is... not very good. Back then, I viewed it as fair, but not "the real thing." My grandmother was the custodian of the (mostly) live-action mini-series, and to watch this was a rare treat. As far as I was concerned, this was the book come to life off the page.



The music of the opening titles is the closest thing I've found in the real world to magic, and it brings tears to my eyes. It evokes the reality of magic, and the knowledge that if I went into my wardrobe, maybe I would find my way into Narnia. Or, alternatively, I could stick pictures to the back of the wardrobe, imagine myself there, and it would be just as real, just as good. There was none of the wistfulness of knowing that the real world just isn't as exciting as the world of the imagination, because as far as my younger self was concerned, they were the same thing.

...The Witch...

Of course, in 2005, Walt Disney Pictures brought out their Hollywood film of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, and I have no complaint with their treatment of my beloved story. (The sequels left a fair bit to be desired, but I can count even teeny, minor criticisms of L, W & W on my thumbs.)

The BBC mini-series is very much a product of its time, with theatrical over-acting and a quaint combination of costumes and animation for special effects. We've got a dwarf with a broad Yorkshire accent, beavers who resemble lisping potatoes, and an Aslan who, if he opens his mouth wide enough, reveals a man inside a lion suit. And yet, all this fades away, leaving the storytelling to do the work. Watching it now, I was pleasantly surprised how well it stood the test of time in an age of 3D, CGI and Blu-ray, proving that above everything else, what is needed is a good story. The casting is wonderful - I love the hammy White Witch, plummy-voiced, blinky older brother Peter, the freckled and resentful Edmund, Susanish Susan and round, toothy Lucy.

...and the Wardrobe

The BBC also adapted three other Narnia books: Prince Caspian and the Voyage of the Dawn Treader, which were put together as a six-parter, and The Silver Chair. I saw The Silver Chair, which features Doctor Who's Tom Baker as a marvellous Puddleglum, while still a child, and once again I found it was close to perfect, but I was older and more critical of the Prince Caspian/Dawn Treader adaptation - it was a bit rushed and I thought Caspian really ought not to have such childish curls - but even so, with its limited budget and dated special effects, I feel that it captured the essence of the original stories better than its more cinematic Hollywood remakes.

Top Ten Tuesdays - Kids' Classics

Top Ten Tuesday is the brainchild of the ladies at The Broke and the Bookish, and this week the task is to list ten books of our favourite genre. A tricky one for me, as I read so many different types of books. Should I list classics? Fantasy? Any particular sub-genre of fantasy? Thrillers? Teen reads?

In the end I decided to go with:

The Top Ten Books That Shaped My Childhood.

These are the kids' books I would reread regularly, and still return to for a bit of comfort reading, the books that inspired my daydreams, make-believe games, fanfiction and not-really-very original fiction.

1. Anne of Green Gables. This should come as no surprise to anyone who has followed my blog for a while. Anne Shirley was a kindred spirit and probably the most "real" character I'd yet encountered in my reading.


2. The Chronicles of Narnia. For years, the back of my wardrobe was covered in tiny drawings of characters and scenes from this book, cut out and stuck on with blu-tak, in an approximation of a map. If I couldn't actually get to Narnia through my wardrobe, my imagination provided the next best thing.

3. Swallows and Amazons. Oh, for the freedom to spend one's childhood camping, sailing and adventuring, in a world where the lines between real life and fantasy are blurred and where you can live out the stories in your head. That is what childhood should be.

4. Famous Five. I think Enid Blyton was generally disapproved of by schoolteachers and librarians when I was a kid, and I couldn't understand why. Her adventure stories appeal to the imagination of adventurous children with ruined castles, rugged moors and caves galore - and of course, lashings of ginger beer!

5. Malory Towers. I found the first book in this series in the school book box when I was in the middle of my Famous Five craze. This launched me into the world of old-time boarding school stories, midnight feast and hilarious pranks, and inspired my first "novel": First Time At Abbey School, which was basically Malory Towers with the names and events jiggled around. I was very proud of that story, which was handwritten, in pencil, in a Lion King exercise book. I probably ought to type it up before it fades away completely.

6. Chalet School. When it became apparent that I had discovered school stories and wasn't going to give them up, I was bought the first in the Chalet School series by Elinor M. Brent-Dyer. This series follows the school from its beginning with two teachers and three students above an Austrian lake in the late 1920s. Little did the author foresee the way the series must accommodate real historical events several years later - but the Chalet School in Exile, in which the school flees Austria to escape the Nazis, is uindoubtedly the best book of them all. It is remarkable for being a contemporary account of Austria in 1938, written by an Englishwoman and for children.

7. The Railway Children. When I was small, I used to swap toys and books with one of my best friends until my mother put a stop to it. One of the books I did get from her was the ladybird edition of The Railway Children, which became a favourite. Many years later, I was given the "real," full story, and it was wonderful to discover that there was so much more than I had realised.


8. What Katy Did. I was probably given my Katy omnibus because of the heroine's name. The books can be a bit moralising and sickly in places - this is Victorian children's literature, after all - but there are such vivid descriptions of Katy and her siblings' antics and games that I could quite happily imagine myself among them.

9. Little House on the Prairie. Let me put my hands up and say that I have never watched the more well-known TV series, which seems to have a reputation for being too sweet and wholesome to be true. I've lived with the movie in my head for so long that I would jealously resent anyone showing me their version.

10. Anastasia Krupnik. This is probably the odd one out, being the only book or series written after about 1950! Anastasia is "the girl who thinks for herself," and with each book she has a brand-new interest or obsession or project - very much like myself, both then and now. Most of the books end each chapter with a list (things I love/things I hate,) a story-in-progress or a school project, which show Anastasia developing and maturing as a character. She's got a loveable, artistic family, even if her little brother Sam is too precocious to be true.

Twelve Days of Christmas 12: The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe

A glowing lamppost in the middle of a snowy wood. A faun, wrapped in a scarf, carrying parcels and an umbrella. This is one of the images that has lodged in my mind for as long as I can remember, and which is inextricably linked with Christmas. Which is odd, because there hasn't been a Christmas in Narnia in living memory. The country has been placed under a spell which means that it is always winter, but never Christmas.

When I was little, I always wanted so much to find Narnia in my wardrobe. It is so beautifully described, and though it is supposed to be a curse, I think it is at its most beautiful when shrouded in snow and ice. Perhaps I would grow tired of it if I lived in perpetual winter - after all, in real life, I am already wishing that spring would come again. But that snowy wood with its lamppost is the first sight you get of Narnia, and that is the most special, the most iconic image of this wonderful land in the wardrobe. And every time I read this book, which I do most winters, I am transported to the innocence of childhood, when, although even then I knew the story inside out, it never lost its magic and its wonder.

And with the arrival of Lucy, Edmund, Susan and Peter, and the return of the Great Lion Aslan, the Witch's power begins to wane. Father Christmas is seen once more. I love the fact that, although here Christ is known as Aslan and is in the form of a Lion, Christmas is still Christmas. (It was probably brought over by the first King and Queen of Narnia, Frank the Cabby and his wife Nellie in The Magician's Nephew.) Father Christmas is instantly recogniseable, as old as time, wise as well as jolly. I was pleased to see that in the recent film adaptation, Father Christmas was an old-fashioned, graver version of today's Santa, in a darker red coat, as befits an old-fashioned British story - and yet still very much recogniseable.

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is, to my mind, the classic child's fantasy story, a fairy tale not only for children, but for those who have outgrown being too old for fairy tales. It never loses its magic.

And I still check the wardrobe in every room I stay in.

Merry Christmas to you all.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, J. K. Rowling

It was the summer of 2003. My dad was the first person on the Isle of Wight to pre-order the fifth Harry Potter book, happening to be in the shop where I now work, when the publication date was – after a three-year wait – finally announced. I was in the lower sixth form (junior year of high school, to my American readers) and my friends and I spent plenty of lunchtimes and free periods rereading the initial four books and trying to figure out what clues J. K. Rowling had planted in them, discussing what we thought might happen next. We had picked up on Dumbledore’s look of “something like triumph” when he had heard that Voldemort was now protected by Lily Potter’s sacrifice. What did this mean? What was the Order of the Phoenix, and did it have anything to do with the messages Dumbledore had sent out to Professor Lupin, “the old crowd,” including a Mrs Figg – the same Mrs Figg who had babysat for Harry before he knew of his Wizard heritage? I myself wondered about Dumbledore’s throwaway line about Professor Trelawney having brought her total of real predictions up to two – what was the first, and was it plot-significant?

Order of the Phoenix was published
with a choice of covers, catering for
the growing adult readership who'd
rather not be seen reading a kids' book.

And the big question was who dies? J. K. Rowling had let slip that she had killed off a main character, and that the scene had made her cry, and it seemed that question was more interesting than the other 700-odd pages of plot development. Recently I found the old school homework planner in which I had written my shortlist of possible victims. Hagrid. Neville. Lupin – because I knew he was returning. Sirius. Ron. Was I right about any of them? If you’ve read the book, you’ll know.

I think this was the first book with a midnight release, with Ottaker’s bookshop temporarily rebranded “Pottaker’s.” (Groan!) I didn’t go to any of the bookshop events, but I did note that HMV was opening an hour early, and I went down there to buy my shiny new book, not even peeking at the back or cover-flap blurbs. In fact, the postman looked at my book before I did. He spoke to me as I was walking home, “Nice day. You’re up early. You haven’t been buying the new Harry Potter book, have you?” he asked, sounding bored. “Yeah…” I said in the same tone. “Oooh! Let’s have a look!”

It was, as the postman had said, a beautiful day, and I read in the garden. All that day, I read – it was a Saturday – but as the day came to a close I realised I’d rather savour it, draw it out a bit longer. Who knew how long we’d have to wait for another new Potter book? But then I had to go back to school on the Monday, with about a quarter of the book left to go. “Have you read the new Harry Potter book?” asked a certain little squirt in the lunch queue. I should name and shame him, but I won’t. “I’m reading it,” I said, “So don’t…” “[NAME OMITTED*] dies,” he said, before I could get my hands over my ears. Thank you very much! I wanted to believe he was just messing around, but I was watching out for the event now, and not surprised when it happened after all. This boy was in my sister’s class and friendship group at school, and apparently he made himself very unpopular both in 2003, and then in 2005, when Half-Blood Prince was published, by giving away crucial plot spoilers to people trying to savour the story. Not decent, old chap. Not cricket.

***

But onto the book itself. Perhaps it’s because I’d familiarised myself with the first four books over the previous three years, but Order of the Phoenix felt like the odd book out. It didn’t seem to fit in, somehow. And, to be honest, it’s my least favourite book in the  series. In each of the books so far there has been a sense of danger. Lord Voldemort has always been out there somewhere, plotting world domination and Harry’s murder, and now he has returned, the threat is stronger than ever. Harry, Dumbledore et al know it is only a matter of time before outright war.

But worse than the deadly fear is the opposition from the Ministry of Magic. Not only do the Minister and his supporters refuse to believe that Voldemort has returned, but they actively hinder the spreading of the unwelcome news, discrediting it as madness and lies. At Hogwarts, the Ministry is represented by the awful Dolores Umbridge, the latest Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher, who is largely responsible for ensuring that actually learning any kind of self-defence is brutally punished. As Umbridge slowly gains more power at the school, the book’s atmosphere becomes unbearably oppressive. One can’t even love to hate Umbridge, who makes Severus Snape appear a real sweetie by comparison.

As well as my least favourite character in the series, two of my favourite characters, clumsy young witch Tonks, and dippy fourth-year Luna Lovegood, are introduced in this book, and we are reunited with former Defence Against the Dark Arts teachers Remus Lupin and Alastor “Mad-Eye” Moody – the real Moody, this time. We also learn more about Sirius Black, Severus Snape and Harry’s own parents, and some shocking revelations about Harry's father come to light.

We get to see a bit of the wizarding world outside of Hogwarts: much of the action takes place in the Ministry of Magic buildings, and Rowling goes into more detail about Wizard Politics – an ugly game. There are some great plotlines – the titular Order’s covert war against Voldemort despite the Ministry’s opposition, Harry’s mysterious dreams in which he seems to be reading the mind of Lord Voldemort, the students uniting against Umbridge and the Ministry to form Dumbledore’s Army – a sort of trainee Order of the Phoenix - and we learn more about Harry's parents. Yet this book also contains are several subplots which I find less enjoyable to read about. As well as the poisonous Umbridge woman, Hagrid’s story leaves me cold, and Harry throws a year-long strop, shouting at anyone and everyone. Then again, he is fifteen. Finally, I think the scenes at the Ministry of Magic have too high a concentration of weirdness which is left  largely unexplained. I take away from the chapters in the Department of Mysteries a vague, blurry impression of sometimes overwhelming, sometimes grotesque magic all happening too fast to take in. Although the Order of the Phoenix is still a great read, it is a vast and chaotic novel which could probably have benefitted from tighter editing.

*Name omitted for COMMON DECENCY, a concept that some people might not understand. Not that I'm still sore, mind you. Not me. Nope.

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, J. K. Rowling

With just a few weeks to go before Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 is released into the cinemas, I decided to pick up the series where I left off a month or two ago and see if I could reread the lot before going to see the film. The Chamber of Secrets is a lighter read than I’ve come to expect from the series; this is the book – and film – I tend to neglect the most. The Story hasn’t really got started yet, and this book still feels quite safe and self-contained. Sure, there is danger; someone or something has been attacking students at Hogwarts to leave them comatose – and it’s only by luck that no one has died! If the culprit is not caught, Hogwarts must close! But we know that, eventually, everything will be all right, Harry and his friends will find out who did it, might have a near-death experience, but they’ll pull through and save the day.

Rereading this book when you know the whole story, you realise anew how much Harry still has to learn about the wizarding world. In this book, Harry, Ron and Hermione learn how to use the essential Expelliarmus spell, how to make and use polyjuice potion, and for the first time Azkaban prison casts its shadow. We meet the father of school bully Draco Malfoy and start to understand that the Malfoy family are not just snobs, not just nasty, but dark wizards and thinly-veiled supporters of Voldemort. It is here that we hear the insult, “mudblood,” for the first time and find out just how seriously some wizards take the “purity” of their blood – and everyone else’s. This book also has a wonderful comic moment in the duelling club, led by self-obsessed new teacher Professor Lockhart and cold, cruel Professor Snape, who one has to love to hate. I find myself mentally cheering Snape on, because Lockhart is just that annoying.

In some ways this is one of my lesser favourite books in the series. I’m not a big fan of the giant spider detour, and to be blunt, Dobby the house-elf is somewhat irritating.  On the other hand, the Chamber of Secrets is a thrilling mystery, and I love the storyline with Tom Riddle’s old diary, which seems to be a magical revelation into the past, but turns out to be something much more sinister.  I remember being amazed by the twist at the end when we discover the other, more famous identity of handsome, popular golden boy Tom Riddle.

Anne of Windy Willows/Poplars, L. M. Montgomery

The fourth book in the Anne series is a bit of an oddity, sandwiched in between the Avonlea stories and the Blythe Family stories, covering the three years between Anne's graduation and her marriage to Gilbert Blythe. She takes a job as the principal of Sunnyside High School, but finds an obstacle in the form of the vast Pringle family and friends-and-relations. It seems that the clannish Pringles resent Anne for taking the position of principal, which the Pringles had expected to be offered to one of their own.

Like the "Patty's Place" scenes of Anne of the Island, a lot of the pleasure comes from the cosy domesticity of Anne's everyday life. In Sunnyside, she boards with two elderly widows, the austere "Aunt" Kate and timid, over-sensitive "Aunt" Chatty (Charlotte.) The workings of the household are seemingly dictated by housekeeper Rebecca Dew - a veritable Mary Quite Contrary, who is allowed to believe she is in charge by the widows, Anne and possibly even Dusty Miller, the cat, who manage Rebecca Dew by suggesting the opposite to their desired end result. Anne has an adorable little bedroom with a tower and a memorable blue cushion with an uncanny resemblance to a doughnut. Windy Willows (or Poplars, if you prefer) is as homey a house as you can hope to find.

In my opinion, Anne of Windy Willows is one of the weaker books in the series. It was written after some of the chronologically later books, and I think it shows that the author's enthusiasm was waning at the time. It suffers a little for being set in a place and with people we don't have much chance to get to know. Not too much can happen in Windy Willows because it might impact the plot of the later-set but earlier-written Anne's House of Dreams. As such, there is a lot of padding, a lot of "hello-goodbye" characters who have never been mentioned before their moment in the limelight, are never heard from again, and have little to no relevance to the main plot. I've said before that I love the Anne series for its episodic nature, but the hello-goodbye characters don't get enough development for me to care very much. Mainly they are either pessimistic, cantankerous old women who look for the worst possible outcome in every event, from weddings to weeding, or they have endless gossip of friends-and-relations we've never heard of, or they are half of a young couple waiting for Anne to help - sometimes with some hindrance along the way - to find their way to the altar. After a few such incidents, they all start to blur together.

But Anne is still the same imaginative, big-hearted girl, a little older, perhaps a little wiser. Her greatest strength is her empathy with lonely people. In Windy Willows, Anne reaches out to hostile, dowdy teacher Katherine Brooke, and to little Elizabeth Grayson, a small girl living next door to Windy Willows (or Poplars) who lives waiting for "Tomorrow" when her father will come back and take her to live with him. Anne knows what it is to be unwanted - until her adoption by Matthew and Marilla Cuthbert she lived a very unhappy existance, seen as a burden by those who viewed it as their duty to bring her up. Instead of letting herself be embittered by the hardships, Anne's imagination helped her to rise above them, even as a child, but as an adult, those early experiences lend her the kind of compassion that imagination alone can't supply.

Anne of Green Gables, L. M. Montgomery

What better way to start a new year than to rediscover my favourite book of all time?

When old-fashioned, late-middle-aged brother and sister Matthew and Marilla Cuthbert send for an orphan boy to help on their farm at Green Gables, the last person they expect to meet is the precocious, imaginative redhead Anne Shirley. At eleven Anne has never been loved or wanted, but makes up for lost time by winning the hearts of the rural community of Avonlea, winning friends - and a few enemies - with her impulsive ways.

I first read this book at the age of about seven, and immediately Anne was a true "kindred spirit." Like me, she lived more in a dream world than the real one, making up stories left, right and centre, and being remarkably scatterbrained when it came to real life. I spent hours reading and rereading about her exploits until, looking back, it feels difficult to separate the book from my own childhood. L. M. Montgomery brings Avonlea, Prince Edward Island to life by furnishing it with a cast of lovable and believable characters. As well as the irrepressible Anne, there is Mrs Rachel Lynde, who made it her business to know everyone else's, shy and softhearted Matthew who wraps his sister around his little finger without seeming to try, and Marilla who isn't half as stern as she'd have you believe. There are countless ladies who are known only as Mrs [Husband's-name Surname] - a thing that confused me no end when I was small. Then, among the younger generation who I know better than many of my own primary school classmates: pretty, jolly Diana Barry, spiteful Josie Pye and her sister Gertie, airhead Ruby Gillis, sensible Jane Andrews, pompous Charlie Sloan, the rather nerdy Moody Spurgeon McPherson and of course the rascally Gilbert Blythe, who makes his debut in the book's most infamous scene by having a slate cracked over his head after making fun of Anne's red hair.

Anne of Green Gables is a light, episodic novel, the majority of the book taking place during Anne's first couple of years at Green Gables, showing her falling from scrape to scrape, and also experiencing simple delights with such pleasure that you can't help but feel her wonder: eating ice cream for the first time at a Sunday School picnic, making friends, exploring the great outdoors and inventing histories for every place. Anne really is a story to make you appreciate the little things, and to a small girl such as Anne, everything is the most important thing in the world.

You don't really notice Anne changing much, but as the novel progresses, she grows up naturally, her excitable speeches don't sound quite so precocious and gradually she comes to keep her excitable ways under control. Almost before you know it, Anne is fifteen and heading off to Queen's Academy to work for her teacher's certificate. Although she is still very much Anne, I can't help agreeing with Marilla as she laments the loss of the funny, melodramatic little girl Anne was.

"I just couldn't help thinking of the little girl you used to be, Anne. And I was wishing you could have stayed a little girl, even with all your queer ways. You're grown up now, and you're going away; and you look so tall and stylish and so - so - different altogether in that dress..."

As if to reassure the reader as much as Marilla, Anne quickly lets us know that:

"I'm not a bit changed - not really. I'm only just pruned down and branched out."

Anne never gives up her vivid imagination, but channels it into her writing and English Literature studies, and she continues to fall in and out of trouble for several volumes to come.

The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, C. S. Lewis

One evening, when I was seven or eight years old, my father sat me and my sister down and told us he was going to read us a bedtime story: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. We were introduced to "a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it," in one of the best opening passages of any book I'd read before or since. About a page later, my delight increased as I recognised the names of Eustace's cousins: Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy Pevensie, and realised that there were more Narnia stories than I had realised!

There is no doubt about it: there is no more insufferable brat than Eustace Scrubb ("His parents called him Eustace Clarence, and masters called him Scrubb. I can't tell you how his friends spoke to him, for he had none.") at least in the first half of the Dawn Treader. When he finds himself on a gorgeous ship in a magical land, he proceeds to make himself as disagreeable as possible by being selfish, lazy, greedy and a know-it-all. I can't help but think that Lewis was was  making fun of modern sensibilities of the time in the character of Eustace, whose parents were "vegetarians, non-smokers and teetotallers and wore a special kind of underclothes," radical in some ways and standing for no nonsense. Of course, as far as Lewis was concerned, a bit of nonsense is essential to the human existance (and I have to say I quite agree with him.) Eustace is rather a caricature at first, but after a rather traumatic experience, he shapes into a decent and fairly three-dimensional character, who reappears as a protagonist in two later Narnia books.

One of my favourite characters in the Chronicles of Narnia plays a major part in this story. Reepicheep was introduced in Prince Caspian and his character expanded here: a fearless warrior, pure of heart, full of adventure and chivalry, he contains all of the best character traits of any of King Arthur's knights. And he is a mouse.

The Voyage of the Dawn Treader is my very favourite book of an outstanding series of children's books, for its sheer scope of adventure and imagination. In this book, Edmund, Lucy and Eustace join King Caspian X on an epic journey to explore the lands beyond the boundaries of Narnia, and to find out what has happened to Caspian's father's greatest friends who were banished from the kingdom of Narnia by his evil uncle, King Miraz. Reepicheep has an additional adventure planned: to sail to Aslan's own country or perish in the attempt. The group visit a number of very different islands and face a variety of dangers along the way. It is a rather episodic story, with self-contained adventures on each island: Dragon Island, Deathwater, and the terrifying darkness of the Island Where Dreams Come True. (Not daydreams. Nightmares.) All are brought to life in delicious detail, full of adventure and possibility. My favourite part of all is the Island of the Voices, where Lucy must go upstairs in a magician's house and perform a spell from an enormous spellbook whose magic comes not only off its own pages, but out of the novel itself.

Most of all, I love The Voyage of the Dawn Treader best because this shows Narnia in a time of peace and prosperity. This is no life-or-death race against time to save the whole world, or protect the country; this is pure adventure for the fun of it, because they can.

The Voyage of the Dawn Treader has been made into a live action film which is showing in cinemas now. (I shall be seeing it later this week.)

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, C.S. Lewis.

I can't remember a time when I didn't know the story of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Realistically, it probably wasn't the first book I ever read, but I have no memory of it being new to me, of not knowing this book, and then discovering it for the first time. Looking it up online, I discover that the BBC's Sunday night family drama adaptation of this book was aired in November 1988 - or just after my third birthday, and before any but my very earliest memories.

I do remember being told that The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe was a Christian allegory and that Aslan represented Jesus in a fairy-tale setting. Being a good little Sunday School girl I just nodded and thought, "but of course!" though I don't know if I'd worked it out myself before being told, or whether it just made sense. Quite probably, the word "allegory" was not one I would have used myself at such a young age, precocious child though I may have been.

There is no doubt that The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe played a crucial part in forming my love of reading. It kick-started my realisation that stories could help me to understand the world and opened up to me the world of possibilities, to the magical nature of a really good book. Like War Drobe in Spare Oom, books could take me to far away lands. I wanted so much to discover Narnia for myself. For many years the back of my own wardrobe was decorated with a childishly-drawn map of Narnia, with movable figures: a Lucy, a faun and of course the lamp post, tiny figures to give the idea of perspective, that this was a "simply enormous wardrobe" containing a whole world. Even as an adult, if I stay in a new bedroom, I have to check the wardrobe. Just in case. Four or five years ago, I went on holiday with my family to Ireland. On the first night we stayed in a wonderful guesthouse that seemed to have come straight from a children's book, with delicious food, a kitchen that seemed to belong in a Famous Five adventure, and in one of the bedrooms a magnificent wardrobe, the sort of wardrobe where Things Happen. My sister and I (aged 18 and 20 at the time) took one look at each other - and raced each other to the wardrobe. Of course, there was nothing there - but there could have been.

I have read The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe probably more often than any other book in my life (except perhaps Anne of Green Gables) and still it doesn't lose its charm. The details are as fresh as ever - exactly what Lucy had for tea with Mr Tumnus, and all the different varieties of toast - a detail that was not lost on the makers of the latest film adaptation. Lewis's narrative voice is another important part of the book's magic - he writes as if he were a favourite uncle, which adds a cosiness as if being read to. Indeed, I feel that this is a book meant to be read aloud, and sometimes baffle my family when they hear my voice reading aloud and they are well aware there's no one else with me. I am adopted-aunt to my friend's twin daughters and I am looking forward to the day when they are old enough for me to read this book to them. When I read The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, I feel that I am eight years old again, in an endless summer holiday, and that the door into Narnia is just a few metres away, through my very own wardrobe. This is not just a story for me, but an intrinsic part of my childhood. I am quite sure it is part of what made me who I am today.

I haven't yet found my way into Narnia through my own wardrobe, but nevertheless, the books crammed onto its top shelf open the doors into many other worlds.