A Horse and His Boy
C.S. Lewis
Children's Lit
3/25/06 - 3/26/06
My grade: 10
I read this a while ago and completely forgot about it.
This is the third book in the Chronicles of Narnia, and it's not really about Narnia at all, but rather about a boy and a horse from another country south of Narnia. (Has anyone ever figured out this whole Narnia the country versus Narnia the world bit? I mean, Aslan creates what seems like a world, but then there are whole other countries in that world who worship other gods. And where did these people come from? You'd think that Lewis would take the world-building opportunity to avoid the problems of Genesis, but he totally, totally didn't.)
The boy was found in a canoe or something floating down a river (no, I don't see a Moses parallel, why do you ask?) and is raised by a terrible man in Calormen and eventually runs away with a talking horse. They meet up with two more escapees - a young princess and another talking horse. Various dangers ensue. They do encounter the Pevensie children (now Kings and Queens) and a small battle occurs, but on the whole it's actually about a horse and his boy.
Ta and I discussed one day how we barely noticed / aren't bothered by the Christian message in these books. My reasoning is as follows: "Blah blah Jesus, ooh! A centaur!" I believe Ta had something more nuanced to say, but I got distracted by a bit of tin foil and I don't remember.
