2013 Summer Reading Challenge, MN
Recap, part 2: I wrote these words to an old hymn tune. My recording is no longer online, but here are the words:
We watch with joy, and diligence too,
Obedient to God's commands.
His light shines through the darkness to last;
Our countenance glows though through trials we pass,
For we've touched the Master's hands.
Prepare the soil, then sow the seeds;
The fruit, if good, is true.
The wonders of our Lord we'll find,
And hearts will learn to be good and kind
As ancient truths renew.
And through each day I turn to my God:
He guides and teaches me
The way to light and life above,
And sends His Spirit, like a dove,
So I, once blind, may see.
Click here for the MN quotes that go along with each drawing.
Chapter 1: "The dark place was like a long tunnel with brick wall on one side and sloping roof on the other. In the roof there were little chunks of light between the slates."
Chapter 2: "...for a second Digory really thought he was saying something rather fine. But then he remembered the ugly look he had seen on his Uncle's face the moment before Polly vanished: and all at once he saw through Uncle Andrew's grand words."
Chapter 3: "Uncle Andrew, you see, was working with things he did not really understand; most magicians are."
Chapter 4: "The walls rose very high all around that courtyard. They had many great windows in them, windows without glass, through which you saw nothing but black darkness."
Chapter 5: " 'All in one moment one woman blotted it out for ever.'
" 'Who?' said Digory in a faint voice; but he had already guessed the answer.
" 'I,' said the Queen. 'I, Jadis the last Queen, but the Queen of the World.' "
Chapter 6: "And yet, as Polly said afterwards, there was a sort of likeness between her face and his, something in the expression. It was the look that all wicked Magicians have, the 'Mark' which Jadis had said she could not find in Digory's face."
Chapter 7: "This meant that he must watch the front door like a cat watching a mouse's hole; he dared not leave his post for a moment. So he went into the dining-room and 'glued his face' as they say, to the window."
Chapter 8: "It was a Lion. Huge, shaggy, and bright, it stood facing the risen sun. Its mouth was wide open in song and it was about three hundred yards away.
" 'This is a terrible world,' said the Witch. 'We must fly at once.' "
Chapter 9: " 'Ho, ho! They laughed at my Magic. That fool of a sister of mine thinks I'm a lunatic. I wonder what they'll say now? I have discovered a world where everything is bursting with life and growth.' "
Chapter 10: "Now the trouble about trying to make yourself stupider than you really are is that you very often succeed. Uncle Andrew did. He soon did hear nothing but roaring in Aslan's song. Soon he couldn't have heard anything else even if he had wanted to."
Chapter 11: " 'She woke up,' said Digory wretchedly. And then, turning very white, 'I mean, I woke her.' "
Chapter 12: "It was Digory who had the bright idea of eating four each and planting the ninth; for, as he said, 'if the bar off the lamp-post turned into a little light-tree, why shouldn't this turn into a toffee-tree?' So they dibbled a small hole in the turf and buried the piece of toffee."
Chapter 13: " 'Go then, Fools,' called the Witch. 'Think of me, Boy, when you lie old and weak and dying, and remember how you threw away the chance of endless youth! It won't be offered you again.' " ...
"He was very sad and he wasn't even sure all the time that he had done the right thing; but whenever he remembered the shining tears in Aslan's eyes he became sure."
Chapter 14: " 'And you, Narnians, let it be your first care to guard this Tree, for it is your Shield.' "
Chapter 15: "He peeled it and cut it up and gave it to her piece by piece. And no sooner had she finished it than she smiled and her head sank back onto the pillow and she was asleep: a real, natural, gentle sleep, without any of those nasty drugs, which was, as Digory knew, the thing in the whole world that she wanted most."
Recap, part 1: "Both the children were looking up into the Lion's face as he spoke these words. And all at once (they never knew exactly how it happened) the face seemed to be a sea of tossing gold in which they were floating, and such a sweetness and power rolled about them and over them and entered into them that they felt they had never really been happy or wise or good, or even alive and awake, before. And the memory of that moment stayed with them always, so that as long as they both lived, if ever they were sad or afraid or angry, the thought of all that golden goodness, and the feeling that it was still there, quite close, just round some corner or just behind some door, would come back and make them sure, deep down inside, that all was well."