‘Eager’ to Read

“Have you revisited an old favorite book/movie? How did it change for you as you got older?”

As I have often mentioned here, we are watching more movies than ever and many are old favorites. Some are one that I had seen many years ago, so I have been introducing The Husband to old movies that I watched when young.
Every once in a while we find one on YouTube, which has a wealth of old movies.

When I was young, the movies were black and white, not just from lack of coloration, but in my inexperienced outlook. Now, when I see some, I see WHY some characters behaved as they did, and I appreciate the subtle skill of the screenwriters.

(Alas, for the life of me, not one example will come to mind for this post.)

With the many things on my mind, I will have to once again revisit the books of Edward Eager as the example of stories revisited and any changed perceptions.

If you do not know Eager’s books, they are for children, but well written. I fell in love with the books at first reading. At my elementary school I checked out “Magic By the Lake”. The librarian asked me if I had read “Half-Magic”, which was the first of the series, and advised that I read that one first, but “Lake” was already signed out to me and I was in line to go back to the classroom, so I went with it.

I went right back the next time to get “Half-Magic”.

Original book cover Magic By the Lake

 

I was a pretty astute kid and enjoyed the subtle humor contained in the stories, but not as well as I appreciate it now.

 

 

I have also written here of the great job done in the audiobooks done with the Narnia Chronicles in a set narrated by the likes of Kenneth Branagh, Patrick Stewart, Derek Jacobi and other great actors. We have listened to them more than once, The Husband and I, while hands were being put to other matters, and I believe that the immersion into the works has shown me why I enjoy Edward Eager’s books more now.

(All of Eager’s can stand alone.  I picked up a few of the series, (new), at a local library sale and once I read them up again, I ordered the rest  online.)

Magic By the Lake, modern bookcover

 

Eager’s stories are like C. S. Lewis’ only in that they are written about children who have supernatural adventures. Other than that, they are completely different. However, unless I am mistaken, Eager must have been a reader of  Narnia and was beautifully influenced by Lewis’ writing.  In his books, he places subtleties and humor that may or may not always be caught by all of the young readers, but in hopes that they form in the children’s minds. The stories are much shorter and simpler that the Narnia stories. It is not imitation, but could well be formed from Lewis’ influence.

I give him credit whether it is influenced by Narnia or not.  After all, how many millions have read Lewis’ works and how many have written at all in any manner nearly as well as his? Then again, it may be Eager’s own genius. Either way, it is indeed genius, and my own outlook on them has been influenced by my experience with the Narnia books.

As much as I loved the books when I was a kid, so much that I didn’t hesitate to pick them up as soon as I saw them, I enjoyed them even more so in the last year or so, more than 50 years later.

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