Hey Guys,
I read this book a while ago and meant to do a review right after I read it but I did like 7 books right after and now I need to get my books fresh in my brain again. I did the whole Chronicles of Narnia Series, all of the Harry Potter books, and a few others. This particular review will be on the first book of the Narnia series. A few fun facts about this book, in particular, are that, even though this is the first book chronologically within the story of Narnia. It was written second to last of all the books. The final book that was written was the last in the series which is The Last Battle. Something to keep in mind when you read the books chronologically. When you finally get to the final book it seems odd that the other books don’t mention any events that take place within The Magician’s Nephew until The Last Battle.
This book in particular was a great read. The plot of the book is that during the summer of 1900, two children, Digory and Poly, meet while playing in the adjacent gardens of a row of terraced houses. One day they decide to explore the attic connecting the houses, but take the wrong door and surprise the boy’s Uncle Andrew in his study. Uncle Andrew tricks Polly into touching a yellow magic ring, causing her to vanish. Then he explains to Digory that he has been dabbling in magic and that the rings allow travel between one world and another. He blackmails Digory into taking another yellow ring to follow wherever Polly has gone, and two green rings so that they both can return. Digory takes enough rings for him and Polly to return and to go retrieve her. When he finds her they go to a different world than theirs and find an evil queen who then manages to get them to take her to their world and she causes lots of havoc in the town. Luckily the children find a way to get the evil queen out of their world. Unfortunately, they take their uncle too. They are then taken to the place between the worlds and then find another world to jump into. This world is the unformed Narnia. There are some arguments and Aslan, the creator of the world, shows up and scares the queen into fleeing as he is creating the world. Once he is done, he tells Digory that he has unleashed a great evil into this brand new world and must retrieve an item from a place and bring it back to Aslan. That way the evil queen can be kept at bay. The boy does the task that is required of him and they are able to return to their world.
Now, this is a VERY brief summary. Tons of details were left out and if you want to find out what they are go read the book. It’s not very long. I would say that this book is a quick read and give some great insight into the world of Narnia and its origins! The overall book is fairly fast-paced and doesn’t have a lot of unnecessary fluff. I was hooked from the beginning with the two protagonists. Their relationship is quite interesting and somewhat irritating? They don’t seem to get along well. Which is fine but there’s more bickering than I would care to have in a children’s story but I’m not an expert. Still, even with the bickering, the book was fantastic! It gives an excellent insight into the geography of Narnia and helps give you some very insightful history into some of the quirks of the talking beasts. I would give the overall book an eight out of ten. It’s not my favorite Narnian book but it’s up there.
Well, guys I hope you liked this review. Let me know if you want more book reviews or what other content you would like me to write about!
As Always, Be Strong and Courageous
TheUntamedLife 