The Magician's Nephew by C. S. Lewis

Fiction. Paperback. Originally published in 1955.

This is a prequel to The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe. The younger two kids are reading the series for school, so I read it, too. There is some debate about the order to read the series, many preferring to read it in the order it was published, rather than chronological order. C. S. Lewis is quoted to have said he thought the chronological order was probably the was to go, but he thought they could be read in either way.

I've also been reading a book about C. S. Lewis and the question of whether this series is an allegory or not has come up. According to my book, Lewis preferred to call it a "supposal", as in "Suppose Jesus came to a land called Narnia. What would that look like?" Tolkien is quoted as saying "that's the same thing as allegory", but Lewis contended that it was different. I guess I can see a small distinction between allegory and supposal, but I wonder if perhaps supposal should be a category under allegory.

In any case, this is not my first reading of The Magician's Nephew, but I enjoyed rereading it none the less.

Publisher's summary:
When Digory and Polly are tricked by Digory's peculiar Uncle Andrew into becoming part of an experiment, they set off on the adventure of a lifetime. What happens to the children when they touch Uncle Andrew's magic rings is far beyond anything even the old magician could have imagined. Hurtled into the Wood between the Worlds, the children soon find that they can enter many worlds through the mysterious pools there. In one world they encounter the evil Queen Jadis, who wreaks havoc in the streets of London when she is accidentally brought back with them. When they finally manage to pull her out of London, unintentionally taking along Uncle Andrew and a coachman with his horse, they find themselves in what will come to be known as the land of Narnia.

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