Book 1: The Magician's Nephew
Book 2: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe
Book 3: The Horse and His Boy
Book 4: Prince Caspian
Book 5: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
Book 6: The Silver Chair
Book 7: The Last Battle
This set of books has been with me for the past one and a half year and yet I never touched it. And now that I've started reading them, I realize why they were so widely accepted as good books for kids to begin their foray into the world of reading novels.
Things you would notice right away about the series is the way its written. The typical novels we read take you into the storyline generally through the eyes of one of the lead characters. This series however is like a narration of events from your grandfather (knowing that the books were written over half century ago, it may even be your great grand father :D ). The English used in the books is one you wouldn't hear anyone use these days. Written very much in the English used during the Colonial period, one might even classify it as Classical (unless of course you really are into studying literature, in which case it might be a colossal blunder). The books are written in an easy to read language with enough dialogues and description of the scenery as well. It doesn't go too much into the description of either the events or the scenery probably because of the target audience - kids, who are likely to be either overwhelmed or turned off because of the details. The gory details of battles which you see in the motion picture adaption of the novels are explicitly avoided in the books - probably because of the audience again (I said explicitly because the author actually mentions that they are not needed in the book).
Coming to the storyline of the series, its primarily about a fantastic world called as Narnia. The story begins with the creation of the world in "The Magician's Nephew" all the way to its end in "The Final Battle". This fantastic world has visitors from our world every once in a while when there is some dire need in their world. In fact, Narnia has visitors from our world when it is created and also when it comes to an end. All of these visits are orchestrated by Aslan, The Great Lion.
Aslan, The Great Lion, is like a guiding light, hope and joy. He (chauvinistic I know, but take it up with C.S.Lewis, not me) is a God-like figure in the series. Through the course of the books you would learn quite a lot about morality, ethics and responsibility from him based on his words, actions and sometimes the lack thereof. One example would be that in "The Magician's Nephew", a boy commits a mistake without meaning to. You would expect that in a fairy-tale kind of story, a great benevolent King would forgive him for committing the mistake; however, Aslan does not. He makes the boy realize his mistake and then makes him responsible to correct that mistake. (If you believe in Chaos Theory and the Butterfly effect, you would appreciate the changes that happen because of your mistake, say a millennium down the line).
While Aslan is the guiding light, the story really revolves primarily around the visitors from our world to Narnia. As mentioned earlier, these visitors appear in Narnia when it is in a dire need (come to think of it, these visitors could either be a sign of hope, or indicators of how pathetic things really are). During each of the visits, there is a very specific task at hand for the visitors, upon completing which they are sent back to our world (only to be called back later if needed - raw deal if you ask me :D).
The world of Narnia with all its beautiful talking beasts, trees, fauns, centaurs and unicorns gives a very good opportunity for you to let go of the mundane and let your imagination flow. It gives you a chance to unlearn what you have been believing so far and think of what could be possible; unless you are a kid and this actually reinforces what you have been believing instead of unlearing. And if you really think that this is all fantasy and not possible at all, then you could be safely classified as a 'grown-up' and hence no entry for you into Narnia (tough luck is all I can say). If I've to quote one of the characters, I'd say "What do they teach in schools these days". Of late, the books I've been reading have been pointing to the same thing - belief. To be able to enjoy the books completely, you have believe that its possible. Maybe not accept that its entirely true, but at least believe that it is possible. (For all you science geeks, science has still not proven that such worlds cannot exist. Or better still Stephen Hawkings himself has proposed parallel universes, so take that for a scientific argument that a world like Narnia could really exist).
At last, coming to the conclusion, the series of books is really a refreshing read for an adult and an amazing beginner for a kid. All of them are about 250 pages and have enough content to keep you glued to it while you read and enough enchantment to make you grab the next one as soon as you are done with one book.
A passing thought....
With the count of books being 7, I wonder if there is any significance to that number. Harry Potter series also has 7 volumes, and according that canon, 7 is arithmetically a significant number (and hence he 7 Horcruxes).
- Sudhi
Book 2: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe
Book 3: The Horse and His Boy
Book 4: Prince Caspian
Book 5: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
Book 6: The Silver Chair
Book 7: The Last Battle
This set of books has been with me for the past one and a half year and yet I never touched it. And now that I've started reading them, I realize why they were so widely accepted as good books for kids to begin their foray into the world of reading novels.
Things you would notice right away about the series is the way its written. The typical novels we read take you into the storyline generally through the eyes of one of the lead characters. This series however is like a narration of events from your grandfather (knowing that the books were written over half century ago, it may even be your great grand father :D ). The English used in the books is one you wouldn't hear anyone use these days. Written very much in the English used during the Colonial period, one might even classify it as Classical (unless of course you really are into studying literature, in which case it might be a colossal blunder). The books are written in an easy to read language with enough dialogues and description of the scenery as well. It doesn't go too much into the description of either the events or the scenery probably because of the target audience - kids, who are likely to be either overwhelmed or turned off because of the details. The gory details of battles which you see in the motion picture adaption of the novels are explicitly avoided in the books - probably because of the audience again (I said explicitly because the author actually mentions that they are not needed in the book).
Coming to the storyline of the series, its primarily about a fantastic world called as Narnia. The story begins with the creation of the world in "The Magician's Nephew" all the way to its end in "The Final Battle". This fantastic world has visitors from our world every once in a while when there is some dire need in their world. In fact, Narnia has visitors from our world when it is created and also when it comes to an end. All of these visits are orchestrated by Aslan, The Great Lion.
Aslan, The Great Lion, is like a guiding light, hope and joy. He (chauvinistic I know, but take it up with C.S.Lewis, not me) is a God-like figure in the series. Through the course of the books you would learn quite a lot about morality, ethics and responsibility from him based on his words, actions and sometimes the lack thereof. One example would be that in "The Magician's Nephew", a boy commits a mistake without meaning to. You would expect that in a fairy-tale kind of story, a great benevolent King would forgive him for committing the mistake; however, Aslan does not. He makes the boy realize his mistake and then makes him responsible to correct that mistake. (If you believe in Chaos Theory and the Butterfly effect, you would appreciate the changes that happen because of your mistake, say a millennium down the line).
While Aslan is the guiding light, the story really revolves primarily around the visitors from our world to Narnia. As mentioned earlier, these visitors appear in Narnia when it is in a dire need (come to think of it, these visitors could either be a sign of hope, or indicators of how pathetic things really are). During each of the visits, there is a very specific task at hand for the visitors, upon completing which they are sent back to our world (only to be called back later if needed - raw deal if you ask me :D).
The world of Narnia with all its beautiful talking beasts, trees, fauns, centaurs and unicorns gives a very good opportunity for you to let go of the mundane and let your imagination flow. It gives you a chance to unlearn what you have been believing so far and think of what could be possible; unless you are a kid and this actually reinforces what you have been believing instead of unlearing. And if you really think that this is all fantasy and not possible at all, then you could be safely classified as a 'grown-up' and hence no entry for you into Narnia (tough luck is all I can say). If I've to quote one of the characters, I'd say "What do they teach in schools these days". Of late, the books I've been reading have been pointing to the same thing - belief. To be able to enjoy the books completely, you have believe that its possible. Maybe not accept that its entirely true, but at least believe that it is possible. (For all you science geeks, science has still not proven that such worlds cannot exist. Or better still Stephen Hawkings himself has proposed parallel universes, so take that for a scientific argument that a world like Narnia could really exist).
At last, coming to the conclusion, the series of books is really a refreshing read for an adult and an amazing beginner for a kid. All of them are about 250 pages and have enough content to keep you glued to it while you read and enough enchantment to make you grab the next one as soon as you are done with one book.
A passing thought....
With the count of books being 7, I wonder if there is any significance to that number. Harry Potter series also has 7 volumes, and according that canon, 7 is arithmetically a significant number (and hence he 7 Horcruxes).
- Sudhi
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