First Impressions

[transposable_element]

Filia, aged 9, just finished reading The Last Battle a little while ago. She looked up at me and said, "I wonder what happened to Susan."

I asked her what she thought.

"I think she probably just lived a normal life."

I pointed out that she was probably really sad for a while. Filia agreed.

Then she started wondering if Susan really did remember Narnia, suggesting that maybe she hadn't forgotten forever and it was just a stage, and one day she would remember it again.

Comments

[heliopausa]

Absolutely, re: writing them! :D

She sounds a wonderfully thoughtful, argumentative reader. ('argumentative' is a compliment!)

[transposable_element]

It's been fascinating watching her grow more sophisticated as a reader. After finishing tMN she said she wanted to go back and reread LWW. She didn't say why, but presumably she realized that it would read differently with tMN as background. We had been talking about "prequels" in relation to another series.

She doesn't like to write, though. I think it may mostly be a motor issue because she has a lot of ideas, but writing them down takes too long and she gets frustrated.

[edenfalling]

That problem is why I taught myself to touch-type around age ten -- I got so frustrated not being able to write fast enough to keep up with my thoughts!

(And yeah, LWW is a very different experience when read before MN and when read after MN, which is why I think reading Narnia in publication order is best. *grin*)