The Magician's Nephew

My earliest memory of being read to is being curled up on my parents' bed in our house in Montera. My dad was reading the beginning of The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe to me, and I remember being mesmerized by the concept of a fawn. Half goat, half human? How was that possible? (Of course, I was to learn later on that it is not.) The excitement and wonder of that moment was enough to not only stick with me (I couldn't have been more than four at the time), but it sparked a lifelong interest in stories.

As I grew older, the Chronicles of Narnia became favorites of mine, not just because they were great books, and not just because of the sentimentality that tied them to both my father and my childhood. I loved the writing style. CS Lewis had a way of storytelling unique and unmatched by any of his contemporaries. He also seemed to understand children better than perhaps most authors. As if all of this weren't enough, his stories, though often incorrectly labeled "allegories" are, in fact, "suppositions." This means that, instead of directly representing a story already familiar to our culture, he wrote a story "supposing" that there was a world like Narnia, and there was an evil that had snuck in (the devil), and the land needed to be redeemed. If that were the case, let's suppose that God sent his Son in the form of a Lion...

As Brother took off with chapter books this school year, I decided it was time to introduce him to these favorite books of mine. He's watched the animated movie with which I grew up, but he was completely unfamiliar with The Magician's Nephew, which is the first chronological book in the series and possibly my very favorite. I gathered both kids on the couch this morning after breakfast, and we read chapter 1. Brother begged me to keep going. Sister wasn't quite as interested, so she went to play with dolls. But we kept going, and went all the way to chapter 4 before we had to run some errands. I have the audiobook upstairs, so I asked brother if you like to listen as we drove. He said "Ooo yes, please!" so we listened and listened. By the time we got home, we were on chapter 7… halfway through! "Mom, can we please keep reading?"

As you can imagine, my mommy/teacher heart was exploding. Thankfully, we didn't have any big plans today other than a few things around the house and some errands, but even if we had, it's likely that I would've canceled them to stay curled up on the couch with my boy reading one of my very favorite stories of all time.

As it was, we finished this evening, and Brother immediately pronounced "Let's start the next one! I'll go get it." It was getting late by now, so I told him I would read the first chapter and he could take the book to bed with him if he would like to continue to read. I have no idea how far he got, but I have a feeling we will be reading the entire series in the coming weeks (days?).

I had always hoped my children would be readers. I had also look forward to introducing them to my very favorite stories. We called Pepa (my dad) and told him how we read an entire book in one day and how awesome it was.  It was an exciting thing to share with a third-generation! 

It's hard to put into words what today meant to me. ❤