Theme reading month so far

Finished The Chronicles of Narnia last night. Meh. Overall, not that impressed. The first couple were pretty good, BUT, as the stories went on, the writing did not mature, the characters did not mature, and then the last book, The Last Battle, just pissed me off.

I'm not a Christian. I'm not even a monotheist, so the religious overtones of the series bothered me as a whole, but by the end I felt as if the author was trying very, very hard to convert me. Which is something I don't appreciate, don't need, and certainly don't want.

I told That Boy's sister, Ms. Thing, that I'd read them to her kids someday, because I want to be the kind of grandmother that reads to the grandchildren, but I won't pick them up before then.

If I had read these books when I was 7 or 8; I'd probably see the wonder and have enjoyed them more. In fact, at that age, I'm fairly sure these would have among been my favorite all time books. But I didn't, so they're not.

Of course, to quote Dennis Miller: That's just my opinion.

On a positive note, I had a problem with one of the books. My copy of Prince Caspian was defective and the last 20 or so pages were unreadable. I contacted Harper Trophy (a children's book subsidiary of HarperCollins) about the problem and they sent me a replacement book promptly and pleasantly with no fuss. You have to like it when a large corporation makes good on a defective product without me having to jump through hoops.

And I'm semi-abandoning theme reading month now. I'll still read only books that I've not read before, but I'm leaving the children's genre behind. I don't think I'm childish enough, which, quite frankly, is probably a huge surprise to the people who know me best.