Book Review: The Magician's Nephew by C.S. Lewis

Synopsis:

Narnia. . .where the woods are thick and cool, where Talking Beasts are called to life. . .a new world where the adventure begins.
Digory and Polly meet and become friends one cold, wet summer in London. Their lives burst into adventure when Digory's Uncle Andrew, who thinks he is a magician, sends them hurtling to. . .somewhere else. They find their way to Narnia, newborn from the Lion's song, and encounter the evil sorceress Jadis, before they finally return home.
Digory and Polly discover a secret passage that links their houses and are tricked into vanishing out of this world and into the World of Charn, where they wake up the evil Queen Jadis. There, they witness the creation of the Land of Narnia as it is sung into being by the Great Lion, Aslan. (Image and synopsis from bn.com).

My Review:

I don't often read children's books (in fact, I probably haven't read one since my own elementary school days) but since I greatly admire and love J.R.R. Tolkien's work, and Tolkien was a friend and colleague of C.S. Lewis, and I already had this series on my bookshelf... I decided to finally read the Narnia series! I read The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe in elementary school but I never read the rest of the series.

The Magician's Nephew is the first of the series, even though it was written after most of the others. It tells the story of the creation of Narnia, a magical land. In fact, The Magician's Nephew is very similar to the Genesis in the Bible. At least the last half is similar to Genesis. I suppose both Lewis and Tolkien wanted to create their own Christian worlds, since Tolkien's The Silmarillion is also a form of Genesis, but for Tolkien's magical world.

The birth of Narnia is witnessed by two children who stumble into the land through the ineptitude of the boy's Uncle, a self-proclaimed magician. The children, as well as a cab driver, his horse, the uncle, and a witch from another land observe Aslan, a lion and god-like figure for Narnia, breathe life into the world.

I enjoyed this book because it explains some of the Narnia that I remembered from The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, as well as because it was a cute story about the adventure of two children. It was a very quick read (less than 24 hours from start to finish) and even included illustrations! :-D It was hard for me to rate this book since I can't compare to other children's books that I've read, so I gave it a 4 out of 5 stars since I enjoyed the story even though the writing style and plot were simple.

My Rating: 4 out of 5 stars