June/July Book Review <3

I am pretty excited. I finished the Narnia Series as planned this month. I am not so excited that I forgot to take a photo of the last 5 books of the series!! So this little dragon will just have to do to represent the amazing world of Narnia that I have been visiting the past two months. 

I finished the first two in May and then decided to wait until I had the whole series completed before I wrote the review. It was so good. I loved it. 

While Lewis definitely is writing from a Christian perspective and you can pick up the gospel message as you read, it would not be wise to try and apply it directly to Scripture. It is not Scripture, but it is a story that relies so heavily on the truth of God’s Sovereignty, humanity and creation’s fallen nature. 

It is 100% fantasy with a lovely dose of reality and it highlights the eternal versus the temporal and God’s Love, Mercy and Faithfulness being equal with His Justice. Some may lose patience with the various fairy tale characters but if you loved The Hobbit, Lord of the Rings and/or Hind’s Feet in High Places I think you would thoroughly enjoy visiting the land of Narnia. 

I jotted a few notes as I was going through the series. I am sharing them with you today as a means of reviewing the books.

#1. 

One of the questions often asked about Aslan, the character that represents Christ is, “Is he safe?” And the answer of those who have met him is always, “No, he is not safe. But he is good.” While he, like Christ, brings comfort to us, there is so much more to both. 

This was best illustrated in “The Horse and His Boy”. 

One of the characters is fleeing from a lion on a horse. As she nears the gates of a place of safety, the lion leaps on the saddle behind her and scratches her back deeply. Later when she is meeting with Aslan, she asks about various lions they had seen so far on their journey. One had protected them, one had guided them and one had caused her wounds. 

Aslan explained they were all him. 

When asked why he would have wounded her, he explained that she only had a small taste of the scourging of a servant who had paid the price for her escape from the land she had fled from. She had given the servant sleeping medicine so she could slip out of the castle and escape. 

The servant was punished for sleeping and allowing this to happen. She realized that her freedom had cost someone else pain. It gave her compassion for the one who had sacrificed by serving her mistress with consequences. 

Aslan in this case was not “safe” but he was “good.” He loved the servant and he loved the girl. 

#2. 

In “The Voyage of the Dawn Treader”, young Lucy is tasked to find a spell that will free an unknown group of creatures from being invisible. As she looks through the book of spells, she finds one where you can know what others think of you. 

Being young, she is drawn into the pictures surrounding the spell and she recognizes people she knows. One drawing is two of her school mates. Full of curiosity, she says the spell and the figures come to life like a miniature movie. 

She can hear the older friend asking a younger girl why she spends time with Lucy. This one continues with a list of reasons why Lucy is annoying and uninteresting. The little one nods her head in agreement and says she is just trying to be nice. 

Lucy is crushed. 

She moves on and completes her assignment. Eventually, she meets up with Aslan. In their conversations explaining the situation things up to that point, Aslan kindly mentions to her that regarding what she overheard there were some things to consider. 

He asked her not to judge the young girl harshly. He reminded her that she was the younger of the two and probably was intimidated by this older girl. His wise counsel eased her sorrow as he told her we all make mistakes and we need to forgive and forget. A good reminder for all of us when our feelings are hurt by others. 

#3

I loved how the worst of characters were redeemed and changed when they met Aslan. Edmund was full of hatred and jealousy and betrayed his siblings, until Aslan gave his life in payment for the White Witch’s demand of justice from the young boy for being a traitor. 

Eustace was an arrogant, smug, selfish boy until he traveled to the end of the world with Prince Caspian and the others were such an influence on him that by the time he met Aslan, he was a different person. 

Others were given chance after chance to recognize and love who Aslan was. And once repentant, they were forgiven and restored. Their lives were different. And Aslan had loved them from beginning to end. 

#4

In “The Silver Chair” new visitors Jill Pole and Eustace Scrubbs find themselves commissioned to locate and free the future King of Narnia who has disappeared. Eustace is already changed from a previous visit. Poor Jill is brought into Narnia with no clue what is going on. 

She meets Aslan on her own and is given the keys to the mission for which they were summoned to Narnia. Her instructions were to repeat the steps of direction spoken by Aslan frequently. She does this faithfully for a long while, but as the trip begins to weary them she ceases to recite them daily. 

This leads to her susceptibility to deception and they suffer quite a few hardships until she comes to her senses and begins to rehearse what she has been told. Clearly an admonition for us to not forsake the study and memorization and vocalization of God’s word daily. 

#5

 In “The Last Battle”, things get very serious. 

The final book deals with death, the end of things, the New Heaven and New Earth. And it’s hard to imagine capturing all of this in a fantasy book that acknowledges what none of us know fully but base our hope in. 

It left me with tears and a glimpse of what all of this might look like someday. As I have said, it is not Scripture but it helped my vivid imagination grasp truths a little better. It built my faith and my love for Jesus and I think that was Lewis’s goal. 

The book is recommended as a read-together book for 6-7 year olds and read alone for 8-12. I look at our four grands and think it really would be better read together. Maybe for an older child you could each read on your own, but then talk about it. 

As advanced as things seem to be for kids these days, a book like this is deeper level thinking then the regular fiction series that they are used to reading. I definitely think talking about it after reading sections would be such a good activity for a family. 

Beyond that, I loved it as an adult and if you haven’t read the series and think you would like it…you are never too old because in Narnia, we all become our best and strongest age. So that’s kinda cool….

What are you reading this summer?