Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

New Thoughts About Narnia

Aslan's Breath: Seeing the Holy Spirit in Narnia by Matthew Dickerson

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Aslan’s Breath: Seeing the Holy Spirit in Narnia by Matthew Dickerson My rating: 4 of 5 stars I grew up on The Chronicles of Narnia; they were my gateway to fantasy literature. Growing in a Christian community where there was some stigma about fantasy, but Narnia passed muster with its over themes of love and good vs. evil. As I grew up, I moved on to more “adult” fantasy such as Lord of the Rings, but still was interested in literary criticism about Narnia. That […]

“I’m on Aslan’s side even if there isn’t any Aslan to lead it. I’m going to live as like a Narnian as I can even if there isn’t any Narnia.”

The Silver Chair (The Chronicles of Narnia, #6) by C.S. Lewis

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I think this might the book in this series I’ve read the least, even below the two books I actually don’t really like all that much (The Horse and His Boy and The Last Battle). It’s certainly the book I remembered the least. I remembered the broad strokes, but details had been completely lost to me, which means I didn’t read it enough to burn it into my brain like I did the others. What this meant is that I was able to read this […]

“There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it.”

The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (The Chronicles of Narnia, #5) by C.S. Lewis

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I always liked this one as a kid, but it was never my favorite. It had an edge of This Is Too Real about it at the time, which looking back now is hilarious because there is nothing realistic about this book. But as a kid, I found the constant mentions of death and the afterlife (even if just a metaphorical afterlife) disturbing. Which is weird, because in other contexts, I didn’t mind reading about those things. There was just something strange to me, I […]

“Wouldn’t it be dreadful if some day in our own world, at home, men start going wild inside, like the animals here, and still look like men, so that you’d never know which were which.”

Prince Caspian (The Chronicles of Narnia, #4) by C.S. Lewis

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This book was always my favorite of the series. Something about the kids coming back to Narnia only a year later, but it having been hundreds, maybe thousands of years in the meantime, and their former castle of Cair Paravel now a ruin they have to unearth, and the quest to reclaim Narnia from ill-doers was just so very appealing to me as a kid and young adult. A large part of my affection for it still exists in the many, many re-reads I did […]

“My good Horse, you’ve lost nothing but your self-conceit.”

The Horse and His Boy (The Chronicles of Narnia, #3) by C.S. Lewis

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This was always my least favorite book in this series. So far at least, it remains that way, but I think for different reasons. I’m not quite sure why I never really warmed to it when I was a kid. I’d like to think that my subconscious was responding to what my conscious mind is cringing at now, but I also think that a large part of it might be that this isn’t really a portal fantasy, like the rest of the books are (The […]

“Safe?” said Mr. Beaver; “don’t you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you.”

The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe (The Chronicles of Narnia, #2) by C.S. Lewis

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**30 Books in 30 Days** Book 1/30 I don’t know why I decided that in June* I would read essentially a book a day, but I decided I wanted to see if I could do it. I have, of course, stacked the deck a little with shorter novels, romances, audiobooks, etc, but I have given myself space to read some chonkers as well. Let’s see if I can do it! *So behind in reviews :(((( My re-visitation of the Chronicles of Narnia opens this challenge. […]



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