The Magician's Nephew

A: The Magician’s Nephew
B: C.S. Lewis
D: Harper Collins Publications, 1994
E: High Fantasy Novel
F: advanced 4th and 5th
G: Digory is a country boy living in London with his Aunt and Uncle because his mother is very ill. He meets Polly while playing outside and they become close friends. One day while exploring Polly’s attic and trying to get to the next empty, they windup in Digory’s Uncle’s study. He is experimenting with some magic and ends up sending Polly and Digory into another world using a set of rings. This new world is a wooded area with many pools. Each of these pools leads them to another world. In one world the accidentally release a powerful witch named Jadis. They mistakenly bring her back to earth and quickly find out they must get her back to her own world, so the take her, and their uncle, and a cab driver and horse with them, but they wind up in Narnia by accident. They get to see a lion singing the world into existence. After the lion has created the world, he makes the cab driver king and his wife queen. He also sends Digory and Polly on a winged horse to a garden to get an apple that will be planted to form a tree that will protect the world from the evil witch Jadis. Digory also takes one of the apples to his mother when he gets back, and it cures her. He then plants the core and it grows into a tree, which is later made into a magical wardrobe.
H: This book hit all the right buttons for me. From start to finish I was totally engrossed with the magical world created be C.S. Lewis. One thing I noticed, and something that I really liked, was that Digory and Polly did not get along for the whole story, the fought just like real kids. This allowed me to trust the story a lot more. The magical aspect of this book made me think of the “Harry Potter” series. I really loved this book and will be reading the rest of the series as soon as possible.
I: To me, this book would best be used as a free read to get kids interested in reading. I think, that for many kids, this will be a great read and will get them geared up to read the rest of the series.