GroshLink

"Something was crawling.  Worse still, something was coming out.  Edmund or Lucy or you would have recognized it at once, but Eustace had read none of the right books.  The thing that came out of the cave was something he had never even imaginged -- a long lead-colored snout, dull read eyes, no feathers or fur, a long lithe body that trailed on the ground, legs whose elbows went up higher than its back like a spider's, cruel claws, bat's wings that made a rasping noise on the stone, yards of tail.  And the lines of smoke were coming from its two nostrils.  He never said the word Dragon to himself.  Nor would it have made things any better if he had. ... In the first place Eustace (never having read the right books) had no idea how to tell a story straight." -- C.S. Lewis. "The Voyage of the Dawn Treader." HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.  1952.  From Chapter 6, 7.  

These two sections led to a brief, helpful conversation between myself and the twins regarding "reading the right books."  Now it turns out that the culture which Lewis is critiquing in Eustace, before "he began to be a different boy" (Chapter 7), failed.  For today children (even college students/young adults) enjoy much fantasy, but fail to engage with "exports and imports and governments and drains."  I guess this emphasizes the pendulum swings of culture.  But I would point out that fantasy comes largely through TV/film instead of reading/discussion.  Entering Narnia with the twins has reminded me that although "a picture speaks a 1000 words," the ones which we create in our mind by reading a series such as the Narnian Chronicles can be much better/benefical than the pictures which illustrate a book or fill major motion pictures.