The Magician's Nephew (The Chronicles of Narnia)

Book Details
Author: C.S. Lewis (Clive Staples Lewis)
Published: May 2nd, 1955
Pages: 202 (Paperback)
Genre: Fantasy, Children's Literature

"Dog, unhand our royal charger. We are the Empress Jadis."

Chronologically, "The Magician's Nephew" is the first book in the Chronicles of Narnia series by C.S. Lewis. Though it was published second to last the book, Lewis always wanted the series to start with this book. The reasoning behind this is because it gives us an idea of how the world of Narnia began and gives a fuller back story to two characters we encounter in one or two of the other books.

Digory Kirke, a miserable young boy, has been forced to live with his bachelor uncle and his spinster aunt due to his mother's illness. While his aunt takes care of his poorly mother, his father is off in India (presumably perpetuating the colonization of said country by the European empire, but that's for a very different blog), and Digory misses his home in the country.

One day, while crying in the garden, Digory meets Polly Plummer, a young girl who lives next door. They play in the crawlspace between their houses and inadvertently end up in Digory's uncle's study.

Uncle Andrew tricks the children into using magic rings and they find themselves in the place between worlds.

Thoughts
I hadn't read this book in at least a decade. More than likely longer than that. Imagine my delight to realize that I still actually enjoy the book!

I have re-read some books I enjoyed in childhood that I detest for various reasons now and was actually moderately concerned that the Chronicles of Narnia were going to fall prey to this. However, in spite of the somewhat religious messages present, I found that this was a book I thoroughly enjoyed re-reading after so long. Though, I did have a couple of hilarious thoughts while reading it.

Though some of the language is dated, it holds up fairly well. I also remembered quite a bit of it as I was reading which made it go a little quicker. It's also important to note that I read a version that was only 100 or so pages long because it was part of a 7-in-1 volume.

Aside from some stereotypical type comments about girls and boys (Digory makes a remark about "isn't that just like a girl" and Uncle Andrew calls women 'gel' [pronounced geh-l]), some ableist comments (referring to people as 'mad' or 'crazy') and some obvious references to Christianity (the creation of Narnia), it was still a thoroughly enjoyable read.

And, despite my age, I found it wasn't quite so difficult to understand and sympathize with the characters.

Rating
Originally, I gave this book a 5 out of 5 on Goodreads, but in all honesty it probably deserves more of a 4.

So for our purposes I'll give it a 7.5 out of 10. It did have some ableist language, some subtle misogyny and I just really dislike religion being foisted on children.

Rated G for general readers. Other than the aforementioned issues, there is no true violence and everything is geared toward younger audiences anyway.

I would recommend for children, starting at probably 6 or 7; anyone who is unoffended by outdated language or religion.