Rediscovering Children's Classics: The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe

The Chronicles of Narnia

The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe

C.S. Lewis

Book 2 of 6 Narnia Chronicles

Summary:

Four siblings are sent to live with an old professor in the British countryside during World War II. While there, the children must occupy their time playing and exploring around the house. One day the youngest, Lucy, goes to explore an old wardrobe filled with old coats, and she stumbles into another world. It is a fantasy world set in winter, called Narnia. When she returns, hours later, it is as if no time had passed. Her siblings do not believe her for until one day, when they are hiding from the house mistress, and find themselves back in the wardrobe, and back in Narnia. There, they are discovered to be the "Sons of Adam and Daughters of Eve" thought to fulfill a prophecy. The White Witch wants to have them dead, but the plot thickens which Aslan, the Lion, returns to Narnia. Aslan sacrifices himself for the safety of the children, but just as the reader thinks that all hope is lost, the Lion is resurrected and goes on to save the victims of the White Witch and end her reign forever. Afterwards, the four siblings are crowned kings and queens of Narnia. They spend many years there are eventually forget they had ever been anywhere else at all. One day, as the siblings are riding horses through the woods they discover the old lamppost near the entrance of the wardrobe. Lucy vaguely remembers their past life and the child reenter through the coats, out of the wardrobe, and back into the house of the professor, only to find that real-world time had never changed at all.

The series need not be started with book one, but book two will invite a reader to pick up the other books.

Timelessness:

Above all books encountered for this inquiry project, I would rank this book as the best option to bring to a young reader. I absolutely loved this book, and read it cover to cover in only a couple hours. C.S. Lewis' writing style conveys humor, emotion, and vivid characterizations and setting. Theme and allegory are carefully woven from preexisting stories, making the novel surprising yet acceptable. The novel is easy enough that it shouldn't require too many supports for any late elementary or middle school reader. Teacher support might be useful in helping students draw conclusions and hypothesis from the open ending of the novel. Although set in the past, the entire setting of a fantasy world keeps the novel from becoming outdated. Language use is fair and the only time that language use is too formal is when the children are revisited as kings and queens. In this setting the children speak in a fancy way, but this is done merely to show that they have fit into the roles of royal leaders.

My Copy

Text Features:

The edition I read from was a small old paper book I found in a used bookstore. Its dimensions were only about 4 inches across and 8 long. There were 186 pages, and 17 chapters. The text was small, but 1.5 spaced. At the start of each chapter was a chapter heading illustration depicting the most important scene of the chapter. Language use was fair, detail was useful to the reader but not over flourished. There were a couple instances of song and poetry found in the novel, as in other children's classics of its time.