The Asteroid Project

This is a blogular cluster by me, Damian Marley. I am a teacher-hubby-dad-nerdburger from Melbourne, Australia. Astronomy, space, science, books, filmmaking, education and music are some of the things I bang on about. Most stuff I post is original.

How I Almost Lost It Reading Narnia

I almost lost it today while reading the last few pages of The Voyage of the Dawn Treader to 93 kids in Grade 5/6. I was reading the bit when Reepicheep goes off over the edge of the world in his little coracle and I had to do everything in my teacherly power to stop bursting into tears because it is so beautiful and it brought me back to my own childhood. I got through by trying to think about something else. I was that close to sooking up, giving the book to Mr Hanley and saying, “I just can’t read it anymore, it’s too much.”

But I got through it. We finished the book. It was what is known as a moment.

The Magic Faraway Tree was the first ‘chapter book’ I ever read. I was in Grade 2, 1979. I remember a marathon reading session at the end, when I gave myself a headache ploughing through the last couple of adventures that took place in lands on the top of the Tree. This is the edition I read - and I still own. It belonged to my grandmother, who was also a primary school teacher. In 2009, thirty years after my own first reading, I read this very edition aloud to my Grade 2 students. It’s beautifully illustrated by Dorothy M. Wheeler. The older editions don’t have any of the recent sanctimonious retro-editing. They feature golliwogs, Dame Slap and kids called Dick and Fanny. My philosophy is to expose kids to the original editions, and then use the outmoded material as a valuable teaching point. You know what? Kids aren’t stupid. See the guy on the left, offering a Pop Biscuit to a little elf? That’s Moon Face. Some editions draw him as a person with an actual MOON on his head, but they have clearly misread the passage that introduces Moon Face to us. His face was round, a little like a moon, but nowhere does it say his face is a moon. When I read and think about Moon Face, this is the guy I see. These stories are endlessly delightful and ingenious. A new land arriving on top of the Tree every few days? Instant adventure, variety and uncertainty. You can read a nice little blurb on the book here.

The Magic Faraway Tree was the first ‘chapter book’ I ever read. I was in Grade 2, 1979. I remember a marathon reading session at the end, when I gave myself a headache ploughing through the last couple of adventures that took place in lands on the top of the Tree.

This is the edition I read - and I still own. It belonged to my grandmother, who was also a primary school teacher. In 2009, thirty years after my own first reading, I read this very edition aloud to my Grade 2 students. It’s beautifully illustrated by Dorothy M. Wheeler.

The older editions don’t have any of the recent sanctimonious retro-editing. They feature golliwogs, Dame Slap and kids called Dick and Fanny. My philosophy is to expose kids to the original editions, and then use the outmoded material as a valuable teaching point. You know what? Kids aren’t stupid.

See the guy on the left, offering a Pop Biscuit to a little elf? That’s Moon Face. Some editions draw him as a person with an actual MOON on his head, but they have clearly misread the passage that introduces Moon Face to us. His face was round, a little like a moon, but nowhere does it say his face is a moon. When I read and think about Moon Face, this is the guy I see.

These stories are endlessly delightful and ingenious. A new land arriving on top of the Tree every few days? Instant adventure, variety and uncertainty. You can read a nice little blurb on the book here.