The Magician's Nephew by C.S. Lewis

From the Back Cover: 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 hurling 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.

This book was not the first book published but it is the first book in the series..kind of like how George Lucas worked the whole Star Wars thing. I decided that for the sake of this challenge, I am just going to read the series (as much as I can) and I'm not going to look at all the resources out there yet and seek to interpret it. I'm just going to see what speaks to me about the Christian imagery and then later, I'll go back and mull over the rest.

Well this seems pretty obviously the story of creation. Aslan (God) sings and the world appears out of darkness - the stars and the sun, the land and vegetation, and then the animals. There is a tree and the evil sorceress eats the forbidden fruit. I have to admit, I really enjoyed the brief section where Jadis came to earth - the fish out of water scenario is always ripe with humor and I could just picture that as a funny movie scene!

Even before this world, when they have just gone away from the human world, the cabby feels the peace and says, "I'd ha' been a better man all my life if I'd known there were things like this." That made me think of heaven and trying to be good in order to get to heaven.

When Uncle Andrew couldn't understand the animals speaking and only heard their sounds as growling, I thought about how we as Christians have to be open to hear God's word. So often, my prayer life is completely one way - please, please, please with the occasional thank you but not often any time spent in listening for a reply or reading His Word.

This was a fun read - I don't think I ever read this one as a child. I'm not sure why I skipped over it because I have clear memories of how much I enjoyed some of the others.

This book is my first for the Chronicles of Narnia Reading Challenge hosted by Carrie at Reading to Know

And it works for this too....
Click here to see my progress towards completing the challenge!