The Friday 56 is hosted at Freda's Voice. Find a quote from page 56.
Check out the links for the rules and for the posts of the participants each week. Participants don't select their favorite, coolest, or most intellectual books, they just use the one they are currently reading. This is the book I'm reading right now---
Title: Wild Things: The Joy of Reading Children's Literature as an Adult by Bruce Handy
Book Beginnings:
(Introduction) "The New England Primer, thought to be the first American children's book, was published in Boston circa 1690. Through numerous editions it remained popular into the nineteenth century, though I can't imagine that any actual child, no matter how pious or masochistic or dull-witted, read it with much relish. Here, for instance, is one of the lessons from a 1777 edition (you will have to imagine the grim little woodcuts that accomplished it): Love God. / Use no ill words. / Fear God. / Tell no lies. / Serve God. / Hate Lies."Friday 56: (56%)
[Referring to the symbolism in The Chronicles of Narnia]: "'The author almost certainly did not want his readers to notice the resemblance of the Narnian theology to the Christian story,' writes Lewis's friend and biographer Geaorge Sayer."
Comments: I have been interested in reading this book (or at least part of it) and so I placed a hold on it at the library. It just became available yesterday and so I haven't had a chance to read any of it yet. But it does seems pretty technical. I hope it isn't over my head. The themes of the chapters are pretty fun: New Eyes, New Ears (Goodnight Moon); Runaways: Family drama in picture books; Once upon a time and Maurice Sendak; Talking Animals (Beatrix Potter to Olivia the Pig); You have to know how (Dr. Seuss vs. Dick and Jane); Kids being kids (Ramona Quimby) ; God and Man (Narnia); One Nation; Going on Seventeen (Little Women and Peter Pan); The end (Dead pets, grandparents).
