Kaitlin Reads Narnia: THE LION, THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE

I am slowly but surely working my way through The Chronicles of Narnia for the first time ever, and I recently read THE LION, THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE. This is the only book in the series I have read before, way back in fifth grade. All I remember is being traumatized by the scene with Aslan and the stone table, and I refused to read any other books in the series.

I fared much better this time around. :)

For anyone who doesn’t know, THE LION, THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE introduces us to the Pevensie children (Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy), who find their way into Narnia through a magical wardrobe in the house where they’re living with the mysterious Professor (a grown-up Digory from THEMAGICIAN’S NEPHEW). Lucy, the youngest, discovers Narnia first and is teased by her siblings who don’t believe her. But once Edmund ventures into Narnia and into the path of the White Witch, things begin to snowball. Literally. The Witch, who calls herself Queen of Narnia, has cursed the land with constant winter (but no Christmas!) for as long as anyone can remember.

The only threat to her endless rule is a prophecy that tells of four humans who will end her eternal winter, and once Edmund lets it slip about his three other siblings, the Witch sees her chance to stop it. She convinces Edmund to lure the other children into Narnia so she can kill them all and keep control of Narnia forever. The Pevensie children find themselves in the middle of a war, fighting for a country they never knew existed but now will never forget.

This book is AWESOME. One of the blurbs on the back of my copy calls the stories “deceptively simple,” and I agree. They’re only 100 pages in my volume (I have all seven books in one), and the writing style is straightforward, but there are so many themes! I noticed all the biblical symbolism this time around, most of which went over my head when I was younger. I also enjoyed seeing the connections to THE MAGICIAN’S NEPHEW. Because I read TMN first this time around, I went into THE LION, THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE with knowledge of the White Witch’s past, who the Professor was, how the wardrobe came to be and why in the world that lamppost is in Narnia.

As soon as I finished reading the book, I watched the movie adaptation done by Disney a few years ago. I’ve seen it multiple times but have never been able to compare it to the book before, and I was surprised how faithful an adaptation it was. Almost nothing was left out, and since the book is so small, things were added. But everything that was added made sense. I really liked the expansion of the children’s backstory, how Peter steps into the father-role and Edmund resents him for it. A few action sequences were expanded as well (gotta have your battle scenes!), which I enjoyed too.

All in all, five stars for the book! I have a ton of other things to read right now, but I’m hoping to move onto THE HORSE AND HIS BOY soon!