The Lion, The Witch, And The Wardrobe is one of those books that nearly every child has read. The story is exciting and moves along at a good pace. The characters are colorful, not too shallow and not too deep. And besides, all kids love talking animals. Adults like the book because of the deeper message. Christians see an explicit allegory that compares with the central Christian teaching of Christ. Others appreciate the right vs. wrong message and the act of self-sacrifice and love that it used to conquer the wrongs. It seems that this book can't go wrong.

Tolkien is credited for creating the modern fantasy genre. His Lord of the Rings books opened the eyes of millions of readers to the things that that genre had to offer. I can't help but wonder if Lewis didn't invent the talking animal. Wardrobe was written in 1950. It may be that Disney was already showing Micky Mouse stories by then but was Micky intelligible? Some of the early Disney clips I've seen show animals talking but you can't tell what they are saying (kinda like Charlie Brown's parents). In any case, I bet that Narnia had an incredible impact on bringing the imaginary world for children to life.

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