BOOK THOUGHTS
The Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis
I just came back through the wardrobe from revisiting Narnia. I’m rereading C. S. Lewis’s classic Chronicles of Narnia series to figure out which of my grandkids are the right age to discover them for the first time. The youngest is four, which is definitely too soon, at least for him to read them himself. But the oldest is 11, which might be too late. I want them to be brave enough to go into battle, but still believe in talking lions.One turns eight in a few months and I think he might be at just the right stage. He also loves to read, especially adventure stories. He's the one I have in mind when I reread all seven books. I've been hanging on to this boxed set until he was ready. So far, I've gotten through the first two and know he would love them.
These are not the actual books I had as a child, because those have disappeared in the Narnian mists. But this boxed set is the same edition I had and loved as a young reader in the 1970s.
I am rereading them in publication order, which is how I read them as a child. In between, there was a trend of reading them in narrative order, but I've never been a fan of that sort of tinkering. I like to read a series in the order the author wrote it.
- The Silver Chair (1953)
- The Horse and His Boy (1954)
- The Magician’s Nephew (1955)
- The Last Battle (1956)
The alternate, chronological order is:
- The Magician’s Nephew
- The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
- The Horse and His Boy
- Prince Caspian: The Return to Narnia
- The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
- The Silver Chair
- The Last Battle
My problem with this version is that The Magician's Nephew is a prequel to The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. It goes back and describes the beginning of Narnia. While being chronologically "correct," it robs the reader of that initial sense of amazement in discovering Narnia on the other side of the magic wardrobe.
