Philip Womack

Back in the magic land of Narnia

Katherine Langrish’s warm, perceptive guide to the Chronicles will be of value to newcomers and devotees alike

Fledge carries Digory and Polly over Narnia in The Magician’s Nephew. Credit: Illustration by Jonathan Barry/ Mary Evans Picture Library

  • From Spare Oom to War Drobe: Travels in Narnia with My Nine-Year-Old Self

    Katherine Langrish

    Darton, Longman & Todd, pp. 240, £16

C. S. Lewis’s enchanting Chronicles of Narnia series has, in recent years, come under critical fire. It’s racist, sexist, colonialist; blatant propaganda for Christianity, hoodwinking children into a life of religious submission. These barbs seem to me to miss the point. As a geeky nine-year-old, I had a dim sense that Aslan had something to do with Jesus Christ.

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