The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe

The movie opens tomorrow and I expect it to be very successful. It’s hard to believe that Walden Media and Disney could possibly screw this up. Besides I understand that many church groups are organizing private showings and that pastors around the country are ecstatic about the film WITHOUT EVEN SEEING IT!

That sort of tells me to beware. Personally I’ll wait until it gets to cable before checking it out. Knowing that its theme is a Christian Allegory designed to “prepare” children for accepting the truth of the gospels will probably ruin the movie for me. I suspect I’ll be rooting for the White Witch and having me clapping and cheering at the wrong times in the theater would be a real bummer for the kids.

GO JADIS!!! Errr, I mean, oh never mind.

Walden Media has a free Educator’s Guide to go with the books. I downloaded it for a quick look see. Included are 5 activities supposedly appropriate for grades 3-6 each of which cover two 45 minute sessions. All of them struck me as pretty much useless. I mean, how about we worry about the kids being able to READ before we worry about them doing any Narnia set design as in Activity 5 or creating Narnia costumes as in Activity 4.

Hey wait, here’s a radical thought, how about we teach them some SCIENCE! Bah, at least we have Harry Potter to balance things out.

Allow me announce the formation of the Black Wolves, bodyguard of Jadis the White Witch. Applications are now being accepted. Drop me a line with a short description of your qualifications.