Dear Mr. Jake Coyle,

Dear Mr. Jake Coyle,
Do you even KNOW what the word imagination means?  Did you read the Narnia books as an early elementary child? Are you even aware that are many people who ENJOY books and find movies based on them that deeply delve away from the original plot line horrific? It must not have ever crossed your mind that many CSLewis fans were very concerned to discover Disney was making the first movie. After all, Disney is known for its political correctness, not its accuracy to original sources. And I actually complement you for noting that the news of Prince Caspian deviating from its original plot line actually decreased its following instead of enhancing it.
I'm looking forward to seeing the toadstool people, the dragon/Eustace, the magic book and Lucy's bitter lesson, not to mention the mermaid.  Are the creation of those characters not imaginative enough for you? Or is this yet another movie that has deviated from the plot line so much that it dims the action of the film?
Maybe I'm over-reacting to a critique of a movie I've yet to even see, but I get SO tired of reading disparaging reviews of clean, decent movies based on good books. Perhaps one of the reasons why it bothers me, is that Book One/Six "The Magician's Nephew" and "A Silver Chair" are two of my favorites from the series and could be most dramatically and imaginatively adapted to a movie.  With every movie release that fans love but critics trash, the odds of another one being made decrease significantly. And with all the director/studio changes this last movie has endured, I can't help but wonder if the problem doesn't exist with creativity, but the willingness of its creators to challenge their creative genius by staying within the frame of the text. And that would be a true test of creativity and genius.

http://www.newsobserver.com/2010/12/10/851723/no-roaring-success.html

craziness

Sunday conversations:
Mikalai: Mom, tonight church one hour?
Bobby: One hour thirty minutes.
Mikalai: Mom, tonight church two hours?
Me: One hour thirty minutes.
Aleh: Mom, tonight church one hour?
Me: Yes.
Tonya: Mom, tonight church one hour?
Bobby: Yes, one hour thirty minutes.
Mikalai: Mom, tonight church one hour...
and repeat the above every twenty minutes, and then replace with ...read Narnia? read Bibles?

Do they think the answer is going to change? Tonight in exasperation I responded with ,"No, 5 hours!" much to Jen and Nicole's amusement. No sooner is church over and we're in the van and the Narnia question started! When Aleh asked me for the third time before Bobby could even back out of the parking lot, I finally turned around and said, "Yes! And Aleh is reading 10 pages!" Then Tonya asked, so I said the same thing to her. When the time to read did come around, Aleh started whining, so I told him he had to read 20 pages! (They normally read 1 to 2 pages each.) When Aleh's turn came, I showed him his paragraphs, but he kept going...and going...and going. When he hit the top of page three, I tried to take the book away from him but he pulled it closer and kept reading! The other two started whispering, "It's okay, Mom...okay!" Evidently Mikalai understood when I told Bobby the other night if they read 6 pages a night, we can finish in 9 nights. They read 8 tonight and would have kept going but I made them stop. They wanted to mark where the end of Prince Caspian is (their book as all seven books in one). I think they're on a mission.

The other thing that totally exasperates them is when I don't have the answer to a question (or haven't had time to think!) and answer with "I don't know; we'll see" or "maybe." The other night Tonya especially was frustrated and responded, 'No we'll see. Yes. No. Okay, Momma?" I just laughed and said "Maybe." That night when I told her to go take a bath she looked at me and said, "I don't know. We'll see." When she finished her bath, I told her to brush her teeth, to which she responded, "We'll see." Bobby told her to go brush her teeth and she responded with "Mmm, maybe." We were in a mixture of shock and amusement.

And that's our crazy Sundays.

names

Two years ago we bought a Russian version of C.S. Lewis' The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe. Though the kids balked and whined, we made them read a little bit every night. Then once a week we wouldn't read, and we would watch Disney's movie up to the point where they had read. I think they liked the movie a lot more, and it made reading a little more bearable knowing there was a movie to go along with it.

Sunday at lunch, someone in Bobby's family asked the kids how they liked Lucy and Linus. The kids looked to me, puzzled, so I told them "Dog..zavoot (the Russian word for name)...Lucy..." and before I could finish with Linus, they all chimed in "and Edmund!" We all cracked up laughing. I told them, no, it was Lucy and Linus, but their mind was already on Narnia. Bobby watched them today, and he informed me that they're still calling Linus by the name of Edmund. I've never heard of a dog with a middle name, but I guess one of ours now has one. Oh, well.