In The Last Battle, Susan was the only Pevensie that survived the train wreck on Earth which sent the other children to Narnia after the Last Battle. Susan choses not to return to Narnia. Peter says that she is "no longer a friend of Narnia", and (in Jill Pole's words) "she's interested in nothing now-a-days except nylons and lipstick and invitations." Eustace Scrubb says that she said, "What wonderful memories you have! Fancy you still thinking about all those funny games we used to play when we were children," and Polly Plummer adds, "She wasted all her school time wanting to be the age...

"One word, Ma'am," he said, coming back from the fire; limping because of the pain. "One word. All you've been saying is quite right, I shouldn't wonder. I'm a chap who always liked to know the worst and then put the best face I can on it. So I won't deny any of what you said. But there's one thing more to be said, even so. Suppose we HAVE only dreamed, or made up, all those things--trees and grass and sun and moon and stars and Aslan himself. Suppose we have. Then all I can say is that, in that case, the made-up things seem a goid deal more important than the real ones. Suppose this black...

The second installment in the Narnia franchise, adapted from C.S. Lewis popular young-adult fantasy novels, is slightly darker than THE LION, THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE (2005), which is not to say that the first film is all sunlight and daffodils. But it does end with the implicit promise that, thanks to the courage and cleverness of the Pevensie siblings, human youngsters who rise to the challenge of righting a world where it's always winter and never Christmas, all wrongs have been righted for the foreseeable future. CASPIAN is predicated on the less comforting notion that the price of freedom...

“But Nurse, I'm not...not...tired...” The five-year-old trailed off into a yawn.

The old woman raised her eyebrows and chuckled. “Not tired, eh? We'll see about that, young prince.” She reached down to where he sat on the rug among his toys and hoisted him up with a grunt. “Gracious, child; either I have the strength of a frog or you're getting heavier.”

“A frog!" he giggled, clearly delighted with the idea. “Froggies! Ribbit, ribbit, rib--” He ended in a small hiccup and blinked sleepily. Nurse chuckled again and lightly tweaked his nose.

“Speaking of frogs (whether they ‘ribbit’...