This is my first time reading The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe (LWW) and I'm 31. I did watch the movie in 2005 (age 13). I was a very different person at 13, and I remember liking the movie but not enough to pursue the books. At 13 I was also a self identifying Christian in the way that most children raised in it are: blindly, unthinking believer who doesn't contemplate their own faith beyond "mom and dad said its true so it is." I think you can guess from my attitude in that last sentence that I know longer identify with that label. Currently agnostic, very aware that this is a children's fantasy heavy in Christian allegory, I decided to pick up Narnia for the first time. As I have rediscovered my love for reading as an adult, I have actually really enjoyed children's literature, especially middle grade. Mr. Lewis said himself "When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty, I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up." With all this in mind, here are my thoughts on the first Narnia book.

I think I hit my first hurtle when we ran into the dwarves. I think we are all very aware of dwarves being antisemitic caricatures and its very present here. I just kind of chalked this up to "this book is  from the 50's and is going to be dated" and moved on. Then fucking Santa Claus showed up. Why. Why is Father Christmas a main character? It feels so left field. I could not take this part seriously in the slightest, children's book or not. I guess saying Santa gave them gifts is a short cut to having to explain another character since kids already know who he is.

The that is another thing I found frustrating about LWW. Lewis never explains anything. We never go into depth about anything. I understand that this is a children's book, but we glaze over SO MUCH. Whole battles, discussions, interactions are just skipped over. I so desperately wanted more information but I had to keep reminding myself that this book is intended for 5-13 age range (according to AR). But I think kids would like those details too. It was just kind of frustrating. I think as a fairy tale and fantasy book, LWW is really fun. Talking animals, mythical creatures, kings and queens, witches running around. It really feels like the building blocks to raising a hardcore fantasy enjoyer. And there was enough here that I would really like to know more about Narnia. But Lewis decided to withhold a gorgeous fantasy world in favor of speed running us through a dressed up Bible story.

And that's the thing. The character holding this book down by the throat, Jesus Christ himself, Aslan. Once we start interacting with the lion it is really hard to enjoy this as a plain fairy tale and fantasy book, because it doesn't feel like a fantasy book anymore. The Christian allegory is so heavy handed, it felt like being in Sunday school. I think Veggie Tales is more subtle than LWW. Gone is the whimsy and magical wonder of Narnia and in its place stands a lazy uninspired biblical retelling with talking animals. As an adult, its hard to ignore it but I think if I was still a child it would probably fly over my head and I could have enjoyed this as a simple fantasy book.

Lewis said that as adults, we should be able to enjoy children's books. But I think this book requires you to be blind to the christian allegory and I haven't had that ability for a really long time.

2 out of 5. I don't think I will continue to read this series unfortunately.