Embedded Files
We will soon start reading the book "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" which tells the story of four siblings – Lucy, Edmund, Susan and Peter Pevensie – sent to live on the estate of a mysterious professor to escape the horrors of the WWII bombing of London.
While playing hide-and-seek, the youngest child, Lucy, discovers the world of Narnia. She convinces her brothers and sister to journey through the open back of a magical wardrobe to travel to Narnia with her. Narnia, a once-peaceful land inhabited by talking beasts, dwarfs, fauns, centaurs and giants, has been cursed with eternal winter by the White Witch Under the guidance of a noble and mystical ruler, the magnificent lion Aslan, the children fight to overcome the witch's powerful hold over Narnia in a spectacular, climactic battle destined to free Narnia from the icy spell forever.
(from waldentv.com)
The book is initially set in 1940 in London, at the time of the Second World War and the Blitz.
On September 7, 1940, Adolf Hitler’s bombers appeared over the skies of London. During the two months before, the German Air Force had bombed British airfields and radar stations outside of Britain’s cities.
But now Hitler turned his attention to London and its nine million people. He wanted to invade Britain. Part of Hitler’s reason for attacking the city of London was to destroy business and commercial targets. But Hitler also wanted to destroy the morale, or spirit and hopefulness of the British people. So it was that at about five o’clock in the afternoon, on September 7, 1940, the first bombers arrived to drop “incendiary bombs” on the London docks. Incendiary bombs are bombs used to start fires. It was the light of the docks on fire that guided the other bombers to their targets in the darkness of the night. In this way, bombing continued throughout the night – until 4:30 the next morning. This was the start of the Blitz. (Blitz is from the German word “blitzkrieg,” meaning “lightning war.”) The Blitz fell upon all of London. Countless shops, offices, churches, factories, docks and homes were destroyed. It was nine months before Londoners were able to enjoy a full night’s sleep, free of air raids, free of sirens, free of the screaming, shattering sounds of bombs falling all around them.
The Blitz ended on May 11, 1941, when Hitler called off the raids so that he could move his bombers east to invade Russia. More than 800,000 schoolchildren were sent away from London during the War to live in safety in the countryside, along with more than 100,000 teachers and helpers and more than 500,000 children under school age, who left with their mothers.
The Blitz is the reason the four Pevensie children were sent away from London. Their mother felt they would be safer in the country, away from the bombing of the city. Little did their mother know that the four children would leave one war behind, only to find themselves fighting in another kind of war altogether!
(waldentv.com)
Discuss the following four questions in pairs/groups (questions are also in Socrative):
1. What did Hitler think the bombing of London would do to the British people’s spirits?
2. What does the German word “blitzkrieg” mean?
3. Why were the four Pevensie children sent out of London into the countryside?
4. How would you feel if you were sent away from your family and friends?
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