The Amber Spyglass
Whitbread Book of the Year 2001 — the first children's book ever to take the overall prize — and the most theologically audacious bestseller in the YA canon; the trilogy's capstone and lightning rod alike.
Book Entry · Fantasy
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
by C. S. Lewis · 1950 · The Chronicles of Narnia, book 1
What is The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe about?
Four evacuated children, one spare room, one wardrobe with no back: Lucy Pevensie steps through fur coats into snow, meets a faun carrying parcels, and opens the doorway to Narnia — a hundred years winter-bound under the White Witch, and never Christmas. Edmund's betrayal for Turkish delight, the thaw that runs ahead of Aslan like a rumour, the Stone Table cracked and the deeper magic from before the dawn of time: Lewis built the central myth of his faith into a children's adventure with such directness that generations absorbed it before noticing. Tolkien hated the mishmash — fauns, Father Christmas, talking beavers. A hundred million readers have registered their dissent.
Why it matters
One of the bestselling books ever written and the archetypal portal fantasy: the wardrobe is now a load-bearing structure of the entire genre, and the BBC and Disney adaptations renewed its franchise generation by generation.
Where does it sit in the series?
Seven books, one wardrobe, a lion who is not a tame lion: Lewis's portal-fantasy cycle that has carried generations of children into the genre and argued theology with them on the way.
In the Guide from The Chronicles of Narnia:
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