Summary of the writer’s Particular Ideas about Literacy
Laura Miller’s masterpiece, The Magicians Book: a Skeptic's Adventure in Narnia has been vividly used to enhance student’s understanding of various literary concepts (Sebesta and Donelson, 1993). The book is indeed fascinating because it analyzes Miller’s affection for the chronicles of Narnia (Miller, 2008). C.S Lewis authored the chronicles of Narnia. C.S Lewis used Narnia to portray various aspects of literature. The book is a story of Miller’s unrestrained with C.S Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia. Miller, therefore, casts the chronicles as a profound literary creation and a life-long adventure in art (Miller, 2008). The author realizes that she had a wrong perception of the book during her childhood days. She discovers that the book had a lot of Christian symbolism hence was disguisedly based on the various doctrines of the church (Miller, 2008). Consequently, the writer says, “she was very sorry to lose Narnia” due to her misguided perceptions. Miller asserts that she desired to have a feel of Narnia and also states that she “wishes she could go there” (Miller, 2008). Nevertheless, when she revisited the book later on as a writer, she discovered that she had been completely misguided. Lewis always preferred to use “fairy tale” because of its appealing nature to a large audience.
Additionally, the writer is not a Christian and despite the countless times that she has managed to re-read Lewis books, the books have not succeeded in converting her. However, when she was much younger, she was oblivious of this fact. As a result, her continued enjoyment of the Chronicles is undoubtedly perplexing. Majority of the scholars and critics who pay much attention to the book are Christians and are hence motivated by their faith (Miller, 2008). However, there should be no religious barriers to learning hence there is a need for people to be flexible.
Reflections on the Summary
There exist many novels that can be used to teach critical concepts such as interior monologs, irony, literary allusions, parallelism and flashbacks (Miller, 2008). When children are younger, they read books so as to be able to acquire basic reading skills and for adventure purposes. Subsequently, when children are grown, they engage in more complex learning and can, therefore, unravel the hidden details in an excerpt (Sebesta and Donelson, 1993). In addition, college graduates should, therefore, be in a position to write essays and even publish books. Thus, college students should be able to construct correct sentence structures with minimal grammatical errors (Sebesta and Donelson, 1993). Also, students must learn to use different writing styles and also gain knowledge on proper referencing procedures. Reading books such as “The Magicians Book: a Skeptic's Adventure in Narnia” should sharpen the reader’s literature skills. Students need to be steadfast in exploring various literary materials and should not restrain themselves based on religious lines. For example, the magician’s book is mainly based on Christianity; however, students who are non-Christians are also at liberty to read the book and hence should not limit themselves. Reading is a basic form of learning, and people need to read as many books as possible in order to broaden their linguistic knowledge and literacy levels (Sebesta and Donelson, 1993). Otherwise, Inasmuch as the authors are concerned with improving reader’s grammatical skills, they should also strive to bring out real life situations in order for the readers not to become disappointed in the future.
References
Miller, L. (2008). The magician's book: A skeptic's adventures in Narnia. New York: Little Brown and Co.
Sebesta, S., & Donelson, K. (1993). Inspiring literacy: Literature for children and young adults. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers.
