by C. S. Lewis
Reviewed by Eve
In the first book of the Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis, Digory, a 12 year old boy and Polly, a 12 year old girl, are sent out of our world into another called Charn. Charn didn’t have a single living creature, until they accidentally woke up the evil queen. It was she who spoke the magical word that killed every single living thing in this world. She orders the children to bring her to their world so she can rule it.
When they get back, the queen’s magical powers don’t work anymore, so she causes a commotion which gets the governor involved. Digory and Polly try to take the queen back into Charn but instead take her into Narnia. Narinia is a world run by a lion, named Aslan, and its citizens are all animals. The queen is now a witch, and she runs off to the westland. Digory and Polly return to their world to never bother in this mess ever again.
I liked how Lewis incorporated our normal world into this story, so that the odds of going into other worlds are not impossible. Lewis wrote this book in the 1950s but this book is set in London, in the late 1800s which I thought was a strange choice. After some thought, I realized it all tied together in the series because the second book is set when Digory is an old man, in the 1940s. All the characters in the books were much more proper, and they used words such as jolly. Lewis’s writing allows our minds to extend farther into the imaginary, making it more exciting and fun to read.
I thought Narnia was breath-taking because it seemed so magical. There are talking animals, never-ending turkey delight, and you can plant anything in the soil there and it will turn into a tree that breeds what you planted. I really like the trees because it’s kind of like a source of never ending food. If I got to go there, I would bring some sushi along with me, plant it and eat it.
Overall, I thought this was a very interesting and magical book. The reading level is just right for kids ages 9 to 13, but you can start reading it when you are as old as 50, because of magic that comes from inside the books.