Meredith ap Robert

Tag: children’s literature

  • The Horse and His Boy: Or, When the Classics Let Us Down

    The Horse and His Boy: Or, When the Classics Let Us Down

    The magic of The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe is that of the Otherworld, brought forward from Medieval Celtic lore and into the banality of modern Britain: the wartime refugees who slip through the back of the wardrobe to become kings and queens of Narnia. The Horse and His Boy is utterly devoid of this…

  • Nostalgia: The good, the bad—and the children’s literature

    Nostalgia: The good, the bad—and the children’s literature

    Over the past couple years, I’ve revisited a few nostalgic favorites from my childhood. It all started in a used book shop in Nova Scotia, where I stumbled across Nancy Bond’s A String in the Harp. Honestly, it let me down a bit. The dialogue felt inauthentic, staged, and horribly adult. I still enjoyed it,…