I am really enjoying these posts, although I remember Narnia rather poorly and don't have much to say about them specifically. Would love to hear about how Rowling is arguing with Tolkien.

I am a little surprised by your description of the first seven Redwall books as "ethical." I mostly enjoyed them as a kid, but I was always deeply, deeply bothered by the whole concept of "vermin", and birth/species dooming you to be evil/gross/mean/generally despicable. I gave up on the Redwall books many books ago, but I don't remember Jacques ever making more than a token attempt to subvert that (I even vaguely recall one token attempt with a "vermin" character trying to be good but ultimately failing because his vermin nature kept taking over), and that's a huge sticking point for me in recommending the books to anyone.

I really...just can't find a non-nasty way to read that pattern. (it probably doesn't help that I am personally extremely fond of rats and ferrets and so on, and find the concept of kind cuddly badgers fundamentally hilarious and wrong-headed--but regardless, fantasy being about animals or aliens or vampires or whatever does not to me justify intrinsically evil species).

...wow, I have a lot of Redwall issues. This is only the main one.