The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe

I didn't read any of the Narnia series as a kid, but what a ride it's been reading it to my daughter.

The story and world building is brilliant, but not as heavy as deep fantasy. The characters are layered even though you don't get a lot of time with them given how many are introduced.

The Magicians Nephew is a great start, but the Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe takes it up a level!

I am not usually an “audible book” kind of gal, but I really loved listening to this audio edition of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Such a great narrator, he made the story really come alive!
And how could you not love the story? It's a classic. My kids and I listened to this together, and enjoyed it very much!

Four children go to stay with a professor in the country during the blitzing of London. The youngest child, Lucy, is first to enter the wardrobe and to find her way to Narnia, but soon all four children visit there. And Narnia is in need of the four children as it lies under the enchantment of the White Witch. With the guidance of the lion Aslan, the four take on the task of saving Narnia and, in the process, also change their own lives.

I will be reading all seven Narnia books during 2022. This is my first book of 2022.

6.5/10

This book is a bit too fast paced for me. I feel like I should have a better understanding/relationship to the characters than I have time to develop. Would love some more dialogue to flesh out the four kids.

Additionally, the Christianity doesn't do it for me. I have no problem referring to the children as sons/daughters of Adam/Eve. However, when Aslan sacrifices himself for Edmunds sins and is reborn, it just feel unoriginal. I can understand that C. S. Lewis wanted to tell that story to his daughter and added his own twist though.

As of now this book is not a re-read for me. I will have to finish the series to see if it gets better. However, I think this is a book I can read for my children (when I have some).

Side note: I feel like if you like The Hobbit better than LOTR, this might be for you.

A precursor of the Harry Potter style of fantasy books - a shorter and simpler story. It also reminded me so much of Enid Blyton, but with much more complex world building. I was surprised by how quick a read this book was; I was expecting a long-winded explanation of the fantasy, and a much more complicated plot. Good book. Definitely recommend. Will keep the next books on the series in mind for future reading. 

First of all, this review is my personal opinion, and I agree that everyone does their own.

The starting chapters, up to the children going into the Narnia and introduction to White Witch and Aslan were great. But, after that point, some things became questionable due to their illogical writing.
Few examples include: (Spoilers ahead!)
- Edmund betrays everyone to join the White Witch and end all his brothers, sisters, and all creatures of Narnia just for his food from the Witch. But, after realizing his mistake, this is the line from the book: Edmund shook hands with each of the others and said to each of them in turn, “I'm sorry,” and everyone said “That's all right.”
- And just like that, they forgive him. How can they?
- Also, to make Edmund good in the eyes of the readers, the author included the following line:
“It was all Edmund's doing, Aslan,” Peter was saying. “We'd have been beaten if it hadn't been for him.
- Also, Peter, who had no practical experience on how to fight with a sword, fights the White Witch herself. The following line from the book says it all: ‘It was Peter she was fighting—both of them going at it so hard that Lucy could hardly make out what was happening; she only saw the stone knife and Peter's sword flashing so quickly that they looked like three knives and three swords.'
- How the author expects me to believe that this is all really happening?

Overall, I think that this book best suits for very young children who doesn't have the ability to question the justification of the story, but just to enjoy the characters, as we all did in our childhood.

A book from my childhood. A beautiful story about the fight between good and evil, where good always wins. Beautiful book. I read it when I was a little girl. I was enchanted by this magical land. I imagined that the land of Narnia was in my grandmother's closet. I never moved there, but the dreams remained. I like all the book characters. The book expanded my imagination and the world of dreams. The land of Narnia makes you want to be there, and stay there forever. I recommend the book not only to children.

Summary: This novel was the first book published in the Chronicles of Narnia series. It recounts the adventures of four siblings into the magical land of Narnia. When the children arrive in Narnia, it has been taken over by the evil White Witch. The children eventually find themselves caught up in the struggle between good and evil in this strange land.

Really enjoyed reading the book. Loved that I could visualize Narnia, plus I've seen the film so I knew who to imagine as the cast. Still love the name Lucy! Aslan was great and the book had a great pace. Interesting and outdated language, at times. Looking forward to rewatching the movie, reading the next books, watching those movies, and Ben Barnes.

Update: 04/10/2015

If you'd like to read this review on my blog.

Rating: 3.75/5 stars.

The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe is the thrilling start for the wonderful Narnia series, where we get introduced to the marvelous adventures of Lucy, Edmund, Susan and Peter, how it all started, and all the adventures that await.

Damn, I really like this series. I never read them as little because I just didn't have them here. But now I did and I feel great.

starting by saying, the movie adaptation was actually extremely close to the book. I mean, all the events from the book are in the movie, and they weren't changed chronologically or anything. There is of course, the factor that the book always offers more in depth knowledge of the story. But over all, very good adaptation.

The characters where even cuter in this book. But at the same, I didn't see them in depth, or at least not all. For example, Susan felt pretty ghostly for me, commenting when needed and being there to cause some trouble. But I can tell you, I hate Edmund more now. Before he was just an idiot. Now I find him an idiot and very stupid and evil.

One thing that surprised me was how Aslan's character changed for me. I had a very cute, harmless image of him, and with this book he became a little scary, actually.

And the scene where Aslan goes to the witch to be sacrificed, it affected more than it had with the movie. It was gruesome, even. I don't know, felt a little weird reading it like that.

Only thing, is that it's not as interesting as I thought it could be. And nothing really surprising happened.

Overall, I thought it was a great start for a book. definitely read it.

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Initial reaction.

Rating: 3.75/5 stars

This are such cute books! And unlike the other one, this one had some angst and frustrating parts as well. I loved, I'm glad that I've read this. But now I won't be able to read the rest because the first two are the only ones I own. Maybe one day.

Summary: After almost two weeks of reading, my children watched the 2005 movie last night. 

I have looked forward to my children being old enough that I started liking the books I was reading to them. Many of the books I read are still very young (my son just turned five, and my daughter is 16 months older.) In many ways, The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe is still too old for them. But I do think that this is one of the books that you do not need to understand every little bit to enjoy the book. We discussed it as we went on. I occasionally used different words when I was reading to if I knew they wouldn't understand it. And they were still introduced to a lot of new vocabulary.

I do not know anything to say about the book other than when I read as an adult it is hard to believe that leaving the Beaver's house is not until the 10th of 17 chapters (50% of the way through the book) and the children don't meet Aslan until the 12th chapter (65% of the way through the book).

Movies are a good way to conclude reading a book. It gives a different type of visualization, and I like talking to kids about what is different and how stories work. (No, I don't think they get most of that, but I talk about it anyway.) I think this was only the second or maybe the third time I have watched the 2005 movie. That version of the film is 140 minutes, which is long for a kid's movie. My five year old checked out several times and was not paying full attention. And while the film is reasonably faithful, there is always those decisions that I just do not understand. One minor example is at the end of the movie after Lucy uses her magic elixir to heal Edmond; in the book, Lucy is reluctant to leave Edmond until he is fully well. But Aslan talks to her about duty and the importance of all of the others that are also injured besides her brother. She understands and does her duty (what is portrayed as hours of work). In the movie, Edmond is fully healed, there are hugs and then Aslan looks at her and she goes to do the work which is not shown.

Changing from it being a topic of duty to her idea, changes the scene. The basic story is not changed, but it alters the point by making Lucy the originator of the plan to heal. And at the same time reduces the actual work so it minimizes what the duty would have been as well as the work that the kids can do. I am not looking for a shot by shot recreation of the book. But I do like keeping some of the nuances of how the story is told even if it is missing some of the details. You cannot even in a fairly long movie match the detail of even a short kid's book like this.

We did not listen to the audiobooks, but if you are a fan of audiobooks and you are a member of Audible and purchase books with credits, there is a new ‘box set' of the Chronicles of Narnia that includes all seven books for a single credit. That is very good deal since you can get all for the same price as you can get any single one. The only negative of this is that the audio is not synced to the text this way, so you or your child cannot follow along with the text in the book.