CCC Gainesville | Blog
C.S. Lewis received many fan letters from children about his beloved Narnia books. Many of these letters were not only admiration for the books, but also full of questions children had about the stories. Children also sent him their own illustrations of their favorite parts of his books. C.S. Lewis felt that responding to the children’s letters was his “God-given duty”. After his death many of his responses were collected and compiled into a book, Letters to Children. These are his responses to their questions and comments, their thoughts on all things in and outside of Narnia, but the focus of many letters were on Narnia, the spiritual reality within these stories, and the craft of writing itself.
These letters were collected and put into a book form so that children might continue to have their Narnia (and other topical) questions answered. This book was designed to be read by children, as the letters themselves were written to children. If you can find a copy I would suggest you pick one up and read it along with your Narnia Summer reading for the church One Read.
The book begins by telling a story about Lewis’ childhood and his journey to eventually writing his Narnia books. The events, people and books in his life that developed his vivid imagination, and his love for story writing.
Some of my favorite letters are where he talks about watching animals, mice in his university office, cats, rabbits, squirrels etc. My Dear Sarah-Thank you very much for sending me the pictures of the Fairy King and Queen at tea (or is it breakfast?) in their palace and all the cats (what a lot of cats they have! And a seperate table for them. How sensible!) … I am getting to be quite friends with an old Rabbit who lives in the Wood at Magdalen [College]. I pick leaves off the trees for him because he can’t reach up to the branches and he eats them out of my hand. One day he stood up on his hind legs and put his front paws against me, he was so greedy. I wrote this about it;
A funny old man had a habit of giving a leaf to a rabbit. At first it was shy But then, by and by, It got rude and would stand up to grab it.
July 16th 1944
In another letter to his niece he tells her about how he can only draw a cat from the back, that faces of most animals are too difficult for him to draw but human faces are easy. He does little illustrations to show her what he is good at and what he likes to draw.
Lewis answers questions such as: Dear Hila, …The Voyage of the Dawn Treader is not to be the last: There are to be 4 more, 7 in all. Didn’t you notice that Aslan said nothing about Eustace not going back? …
Dear Fifth Graders, I’m glad you liked the Narnian books and it was very kind of you to write and tell me. … You are mistaken when you think that everything in the books “represents” something in this world. Things do that in The Pilgrim’s Progress but I’m not writing in that way. I did not say to myself, “Let us represent Jesus as He really is in our world by a Lion in Narnia”: I said “Let us suppose that there were a land like Narnia and that the Son of God, as He became a Man in our world, became a Lion there, and then imagine what would happen.” If you think about it, you will see that is quite a different thing. … (later in the letter he tells the children what he looks like, they must have asked) I am tall, fat, rather bald, red-faced, double-chinned, black-haired, have a deep voice, and wear glasses for reading.
The only way for us to get to Aslan’s country is through death, as far as I know: perhaps some very good people get just a tiny glimpse before then.
Best love to you all. When you say your prayers sometimes ask God to bless me,
Yours ever,
C. S. Lewis (May 29th 1954)
I think this is one of my favorite letters, because he takes seriously answering their questions and talks about such deep subjects (death, sin, Heaven, Aslan, God and Jesus) with them. And yet he also is quite funny when describing himself.
Finally one of my favorite series of letters is when he begins corresponding with a family of eight siblings. The children have been reading the books together and decide to write him together. They send him lots of little things and pictures of their imaginings of the Narnia stories. One of my favorite parts of the letters is when he makes comments on the size of their family:
You are a fine big family! I should think your mother sometimes feels like the Old-Woman-who-lived-in-a-Shoe (you know that rhyme!).
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Please check the Narnia VBS resource area in the foyer as I will make available a delightful series of letters between Lewis and a mother who is worried her son loves Aslan more the Jesus. This is a wonderfully honest and beautiful series of letters that I think you all will enjoy reading together at the dinner table one evening.
Summer is just around the corner. This morning as I packed my daughters lunch I sang out, “Only 7 more lunches to pack!” Many of you are preparing for long awaited vacations and time together as a family. Our family will be heading to the mountains in Tennessee to spend a week with grandparents and an aunt and uncle. We are planning other things to do as a family among them includes choosing the books we will read together. One of the books we are reading is Sally Lloys-Jones’ family devotional, Thoughts to Make Your Heart Sing.
This family devotional has 101 simple-yet profound thoughts on faith. It is perfect for bedtime, story time, reading in the car, at the dinner table, the breakfast table, in the park where ever. Each entry is short and yet filled with biblical truth. It can be a companion to the much loved Jesus Storybook Bible. Once again the author has joined up with the illustrator Jago to create a family devotional that is rich in word and image designed to do one thing: make the reader’s heart sing.
Quote from the foreword by Tim Keller:
Why has so little attention ever been given to the devotional lives of children? Of course we should be doing all the standard things: teaching them catechism, including them in family devotions, helping them to participate in worship. But encouraging a child to develop his or her own devotional life has been a missing piece that has direct effect on whether a child grows up with a balanced spiritual life or one that is dangerously one sided.
By that I mean that it is all too easy to concentrate on data-transmission to our children… Somehow, however, the experiential side of a relationship with God is often neglected, so that by the time children are teens, they are woefully lopsided-long on information, but short on experience of God’s presence… Thoughts to Make Your Heart Sing may be the best, first introduction for children to have their own time with Jesus.
This book is available in both hardback and Kindle versions. I would love to recommend the hardback version so that it can be held by young children and the pages can be touched as they look though the beautiful images.
Enjoy your Summer!
As you begi your journey into Narnia through reading C.S. Lewis’s The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe we will be providing complementary essays that will deepen your experience. Some of these readings will be helpful for adults, or books club discussions, while other readings will be more helpful for parents when answering questions children might ask.
Jerram Barrs wrote Echoes of Eden in C.S. Lewis’s The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.
Jerram Barrs:
In his Narnia books, Lewis very intentionally set out to tell the Christian story but not in such a way that those who were ignorant of or resistant to it would find it thrust in their faces. He wanted to capture the imaginations of children and touch their hearts just as he had been captured by the fantastic tales he had read when he was young. As an avid student of the Gospels, Lewis also knew that Jesus himself told wonderful stories which he used to communicate truth indirectly to people who, for all sorts of reasons, would no longer listen to straightforward presentations of it. Lewis wanted his stories, like the myths and fairy stories he loved, to reflect the underlying truths of reality but to do so even more deliberately. In fact, his goal was to ensure that his stories were full of “echoes of Eden.”
Continue reading Echoes of Eden at this link
One Read has begun. If you missed the announcement last week in the service, we introduced the VBS theme, Journey To The Lamppost, A Narnia Adventure. This VBS theme will be focused on the classic and beloved book written by C.S. Lewis, The Lion The Witch and The Wardrobe. Because people of all ages love this book we are doing an all church reading of this book. It does not matter if you don’t want or cannot be involved in VBS, this is not only a VBS event. A One Read is an event where a collective community reads a single book together. Many towns and cities across the US do this as a community. The concept of a One Read (also called, Big Read, One Book) was started by Nancy Pearl, a Seattle librarian. When asked about the birth of her idea she said, “It’s based on the idea of community. My idea was that people would come together who would never come together any other way. Literature brings them together because a book touches them.”
This is also our desire for an All Church One Read. That as a community we would be brought together, across ages and have conversations that build deeper community and relationships.
If you have never read the Chronicles of Narnia they are quick delightful books (7 all together) written by C.S. Lewis. Lewis created an imaginary world just around any corner one might stumble across. You never know when you might fall into a painting or wardrobe and find yourself having tea with talking beavers or sailing with a prince or fighting the worst beasts imaginable.
The Opus group will be reading not only The Lion The Witch and The Wardrobe but also a few other delightful books written by Lewis between now and mid-July. Also this will be the topic of discussion for one of the evening womens bible study meetings this Summer. There are various groups gathering to discuss this book together, if you are interested in inviting some friends over to discuss this book or having a book club of sorts meet for a time to talk about the themes you might find please take this opportunity to do so.
Starting this Sunday there will be articles about Lewis, Narnia, Fairy-Tales, and the need for imagination at the VBS/Narnia table. We also have books at the table for sale for $5 if you would like to grab an extra copy for your self or a friend. These articles are designed to be helpful for group discussions, family dinner table discussions and gaining an understanding of Lewis and his writing of these books.
I am currently reading, C.S. Lewis’ Letters to Children. This is a delightful short book full of his letters to children about various topics. Many of which include answering their questions about the Narnia books. This is a great book to read along with the Narnia books because it allows you to answer, from the authors perspective, questions children might have about the stories. You will also find many of those letters posted weekly here on the blog, so be checking in for the different One Read resources we will post here.
Enjoy your Summer and we hope you stop by and pick up a book!
Each of our classrooms has an apprentice this year. All of our apprentice’s serve most every Sunday alongside one of our Core Teachers. Today I would like to introduce you to Olivia Pendley. If you have a child in the K/1st class during the first worship hour it is likely they are getting to know Olivia. We encourage you to step in and introduce yourself if you have not yet had a chance to meet her.
Meet Olivia:
Hi, my name is Olivia Pendley. I was born in Gainesville and have grown up here.
I am a Freshman at Buchholz high school. I swim for their swim and dive team as well.
I have been apprenticing in the Schackow’s kindergarten and 1st grade class. I have really enjoyed being with the kids, they are all so sweet. Plus it is great to learn what it’s like to teach a class. Thank you!
