Tag: Narnia

127 – Greta Gerwig Isn’t Right for Narnia

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The Chronicles of Narnia are getting the Netflix treatment, and I hope that they’re great. I hope they help an entire new generation of kids discover one of the best book series ever written. But I’m not encouraged by the appointment of Greta Gerwig as the director, because she’s proven twice now that if she’s handed a property made for children, she’ll make a film for adults.

You can listen in your usual audio feed, and there’s also a video version of this episode:

What do you think? Are you optimistic or pessimistic? What things do you think a filmmaker like Gerwig will do right and what will she do that messes around too much with the source material? And which adaptations of the Narnia series are your favorites?

119 – The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe as Historical Fiction

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The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis is not about World War II, except . . .  it kind of is. This novel was published in 1950, but it is set in 1940. Many of the events and themes in the book would have been instantly recognizable to those who first read it, and it’s useful to point that out to children today, who will not have the same emotions and experiences as children from 1950.

The most obvious connection to the war is that the four main characters are children sent away from London to get them away from The Blitz. But there are a surprising number of other things in this story that reflect wartime experiences, from the food to being part of an underground resistance movement!