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Sunday, June 20, 2010

Chronicles of Narnia Reading Challenge

Chronicles of Narnia
It's time again! It's time for the second annual Chronicles of Narnia Reading Challenge around here. I've been looking forward to this since the last challenge concluded. At the current moment, I'm especially excited about it, having just viewed the Voyage of the Dawn Treader movie trailer. My calendar is marked! How 'bout yours?

In case you are new to this reading challenge - here's the deal:

I invite you all to join me on a summer vacation into the world of Narnia. The idea is to spend as much time as you can in this magical land created by C.S. Lewis. I absolutely adore this series (so much that both of our children are named after Lewis in a form or fashion) and delight in sharing the journey it with others.

There are seven books in the The Chronicles of Narnia series and for the purposes of this challenge, I invite you to read at least one, or perhaps all of them, along with me during the month of July.

What counts towards participation in this challenge?

1. Reading (or re-reading) the The Chronicles of Narnia books. (You can purchase the entire collection in a hardback anthology-like edition for $14.95 on Amazon which is a pretty good price! Scour your used book stores or your local library. It should be easy to obtain copies of any of the seven books.) There is so much to be gleaned from each title that you might just want to spend time in one book and see what life lessons you can pull out of it.

2. Reading adapted stories of Narnia aloud with your children. Normally I'm totally against adaptations. But my impatience to introduce my own three year old to these stories has gotten the better of me and I've picked up every Narnia picture book I have come across and he LOVES hearing about Aslan and Lucy in particular. (I'm now smart enough to realize that I need to hit our local Borders when the early reader books come out around the time the upcoming movie is released. This time I'm going to snatch one of each title that they put out for younger readers!)

3. Make a family movie night out of the challenge and watch any of the film adaptations (cartoons or live action) that you'd like as a family.

My only goal in this challenge is to GET YOU IN TO NARNIA!

Dates for This Challenge:

Thursday, July 1st through Friday, July 30th.

I'll have a post up (which will include a Narnia giveaway) on Thursday, July 1st. Come and commit yourself to the challenge on that date and enter to win my Narnia Prize Package. (Any incentive I can, folks, any incentive I can....) At this time it would be GREAT if you'd write up an introductory post of your own, telling us how long you plan on traveling through Narnia and what particularly strikes your fancy about any of C.S. Lewis' characters from this series and link that up to the introductory post.

The challenge will conclude on Friday, July 30th. At that point in time I will put a closing post. You are invited to link up all the blog posts that you have written up over the course of the month during the Chronicles of Narnia Reading Challenge. If you blogged about a particular character from the series, or a book, a movie, a song, or whatever - come and link it up!

So get ready! Pick your book, invite companions along on the journey and get ready to be entertained and educated!

What can you do in the meantime? Spread the word! Invite others to join in with us here as we travel (hopefully as families!) to Narnia! You can add our Narnia Reading Challenge button to your own blog with this code:

<a href="http://www.readingtoknow.com/2010/06/chronicles-of-narnia-reading-challenge.html"><img alt="Chronicles of Narnia" src="http://www.bluecastlephoto.com/misc/chronicles-of-narnia.gif" border="0" /></a>


Further Up and Further In!

"I have come home at last! This is my real country! I belong here. This is the land I have been looking for all my life, though I never knew it till now...Come further up, come further in!" - The Last Battle

24 comments:

Barbara H. said...

Oh, I am so tempted. I would love to revisit Narnia in books and then see the films again -- the time between reading and films was such that I can't remember where the films might deviate from the books. But I have so many other books stacked up, plus we're moving....I will think about it.

Heidi said...

I just might participate in this. Would you believe I've never read through the whole series? As luck would have it, I only have 1 book that I need to review in the month of July, so I'll actually have time to select what I want to read. I'll have to think about it, but this sounds like fun. My 10-year-old will be reading The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe for school this coming year, so it would be good for me to commit to reading at least that one during your challenge.

bekahcubed said...

Woohoo!!! I am totally pumped about this challenge.

I'm gonna try doing something similar to what I did last year--digging a bit deeper into the literary/Biblical meanings. Since I got through The Magician's Nephew last year, I'll start with The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe this year and see how far I get!

Amy @ Hope Is the Word said...

Oh, is it that time already? Yay!!!

apple blossom said...

Thanks for your blog
an award for you on my blog
http://myheartbelongs2books.blogspot.com/2010/06/rose-award-given.html

Jessica Hubbard said...

I have never heard of this fabulous blog of yours, but anyone who loves the magical world of Narnia as much as I do is my new friend...so I will be joining this fabulous challenge! What a wonderful way to spend July. :) Thank you!

Mark Baker said...

I just reread The Magician's Nephew last week and was thinking about doing one a month for the rest of the year. Maybe I should make it two in July.

I love these books and need to revisit the land. And I'm actually reading them in chronological order for the first time ever this go around.

Stephanie said...

I'm sure we'll be reading something Narnia in July! Noelle and I just finished Dawn Treader and I gave her the choice of The Silver Chair or The Boxcar Children. She's sticking w/ Narnia for now. : ) (Yay! I was wanting to refresh my memory on them!)

Stephanie Kay said...

Count me in!!! I have a great pop-up children's book to read. ;) AND I have the Focus on the Family Radio Theater cds to finish listening too. My 7 year old is a huge fan and has been reading and re-reading them for months. We just finished reading the series as a family a couple of months ago so I don't think I'll read the series again. We'll see what else I can come up with.

Kathleen T. Jaeger said...

Sounds like great fun. I love C.S. Lewis and knowing that it can be me reading it for me (and not aloud to the children which is the way I have gone through them the last two times.), I think I can accomplish this. It sounds wonderful to go through Lewis's Narnia. It will help my soul, I think.

Anonymous said...

I think I might join you. My children LOVE Narnia. Even my 4 year old loves to run around being Lucy.

I read it as a child but not as an adult. However, my 11 year old has read it more times than I can count, lol.

Abigail Ann said...

This sounds fantastic. Will try to remember to pop in on the 1st to sign-up.

Lisa notes... said...

I read the whole series two years ago, but I definitely want to re-read Voyage of the Dawn Treader and re-watch the movies that have already been released, so count me in for this challenge. Thanks!

Unknown said...

I love this idea! I have grown up always knowing these stories and it has served me very well! Can I say though that you missed something, The focus on the family radio drama Nania, http://family.christianbook.com/chronicles-limited-edition-family-theatre-audiodrama/c-s-lewis/9781589972995/pd/972996?item_code=WW&netp_id=369213&event=EBRN&view=details
its the books word for work done with actors and it captures the imagination like nothing else, better than the movies as its word for word from CS Lewis and read aloud for you so you can truly loose yourself in the story. great for summer road trips!

Krista said...

Hmmm, might have to re-read the Dawn Treader too! We finally got our own set after reading them (checked out from the library) while we were dating. That was fun! I had only ever read the first one and one of my profs read the Last Battle to us in college. I couldn't stand to read that one again although I absolutely adore the ending!

Upstatemamma said...

Oh I love love LOVE the Narnia series!!! And I have been hoping to read it with my son for a long time. Hmmmm.... maybe I will see if I can get him into it for the challenge - either way I will participate. I will most definitely re-read the books. Any reason to re-read them is good enough for me. Oh I am so excited. :)

Christi said...

This is a wonderful idea, I can't believe I have never read this entire series. What I have read, I really don't remember it was so long ago.

Aleksandra said...

I'm really tempted! I still haven't read the series, so maybe I'll join!

hopeinbrazil said...

Count me in. I made it my goal to read the whole series this year. I'm half way through. My son and husband are HUGE Narnia fans, but it's taken me a while to get on board. =)

ibeeeg said...

I am in for this challenge. My daughter (EJ...10 year old) and I are going to read The Voyage of the Dawn Treader together, and do a mini-study of the book utilizing the book ROAR! We most likely will also re-watch the movies as well. If all goes well, I will read the last two books as well.

Thanks for doing this challenge again. I can see every year, my daughter and I can dig further into the stories...very cool.

Janet said...

Hey Carrie,

Just came back to check the rules again, and I see that books ABOUT the Narnia books aren't listed. I'm assuming that means they don't count, but I wanted to ask just to make sure. Could you let me know?

Thanks! :-)

Carrie said...

Janet - yup. I'm reading some about books myself to help me understand the series better.

Absolutely!

Janet said...

Oh good -- very cool! Thanks, Carrie.

Josna said...

Hi,
I read and re-read the whole series as a child, and when my son was little I read them all to him. However, here is a link to an entry on my blog, Tell Me Another, in which I recount my experience in mistakenly starting to read The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe to my son and his best friend when they were too young for them. "To everything, there is a season..."
Josna

"Curb Your Enthusiasm: A Bedtime Story"
http://josna.wordpress.com/2010/08/01/curb-your-enthusiasm-a-bedtime-story/

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