Review by Me, Emily
Can I just recommend that you go buy a complete set of Chronicles of Narnia? We read The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe in January. I was amazed that even Welly (who was 3 at the time) was able to grasp the story. Both of my kids were absolutely enraptured. We read the whole thing in 3 days.
Since then, we have talked about Narnia off and on as we have read many other wonderful books. This week Welly grabbed the massive Chronicles of Narnia volume off the bookshelf and asked to read more.
This time, we started at the very beginning (a very good place to start...) with The Magician's Nephew. Again, the story captured them up and whisked them away into a land of beautiful imaginings.
In this tale of Narnia, Digory and Polly go exploring. They plan to check out an empty house, but accidentally end up in Digory's crazy uncle's study. Uncle Andrew has evil plans. He sends them off to another world. The first world they come to is Charn, a dying world with an evil queen. The queen follows Digory and Polly home to Earth and wreaks all kinds of havoc.
The children try to return the queen to her world, but end up in a new world altogether...Narnia. The children witness Narnia's creation by Aslan. The scene is beautiful. Aslan sings the world to life.
I'm sure we'll read the rest of the chronicles soon.
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I am also reviewing a preschool book (an absolute favorite) over at Simple Kids today.
I've been reading the Chronicles of Narnia to my children for literally 20 years now (wow--that makes me sound really old). I'm on my second time through the series with my five year old. I was going to read something else, but she BEGGED me to read Narnia again. I LOVE these books.
ReplyDeleteI first started reading them because a friend, who was not a member of any church growing up, was read the series as a young girl by her father. It was there that she learned to love good and and to want to avoid evil; a ringing endorsement in my mind. I started reading them when to my oldest when he turned four.
I'm a very strong proponent of reading them in the original order. (The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Prince Caspian, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (my favorite one!), The Silver Chair, The Horse and His Boy, The Magician's Nephew and the Last Battle.
Here's my main reason:(spoiler warning)
My children were so excited in The Magician's Nephew when they learned how the wardrobe came about and that Diggory was Professor Kirk. If we hadn't previously read The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe it wouldn't have meant anything to them and they would have missed out on one of those very fun ah-ha moments. (As a mom, those are so fun to experience with your children!)
I also really like having The Horse and His Boy be the fifth book. I think it's more rewarding to learn, after reading and loving the first four, that there is yet more adventure with the original four Pevensie's. Reading it right after The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe is what you'd expect and you don't get the pleasant surprise.
I have other small reasons, but, in a nutshell, having read them in the original order and experiencing multiple fun surprises, I want everyone to read them in that order so they don't miss out on any of them. (and I've never heard any good arguments for the current published order).
Sorry for the epistle, but it's what happens when you review a book that I'm passionate about!
I really enjoyed The Magician's Nephew. Just need to get going on the rest of the series.
ReplyDelete=) LOVE this series. I host a Chronicles of Narnia Reading Challenge in July if you ever want to join in. I also have a three year old and he absolutely loves the stories. Kids CAN grasp it. It's an amazing series and I was glad to stumble across your review.
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