A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin

A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This was a cute little story, and I think it would have been good if I'd read it as a child, but as an adult it didn't provide much more than plot, plot, plot.

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Many Waters by Madeleine L'Engle

Many Waters by Madeleine L'Engle
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is the fourth book in the Wrinkle in Time series, though it's actually more well-written story than the first three books. Chronologically it takes place between book 2 and 3. When I read this as a child I gave it three stars- possibly because I was bored by it or because it focused on Sandy and Dennis instead of Meg and Charles. As an adult, my biggest objection is that it's a bit misogynistic. My secondary objection is that there's not any point in this adventure either for Sandy and Dennis or in the bigger scheme of the Wrinkle in Times Series.

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Through the Looking-Glass by Lewis Carroll

Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There by Lewis Carroll
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The first time I read this book I hadn't encountered all the many mentions of it in our culture yet. Or if I had, I hadn't noticed yet. I've encountered many uses of the quote of the Queen telling Alice that in the Mirror Land you must keep running just to stay in the same place. I think once I encountered it as a physics analogy and another time as a more pedestrian analogy.

This is also the origin of the famous poem Jabberwocky. That's probably a good enough reason to read the book.

The first time I read this book, I read it like any other children's book. On a second reading, it appears to be one puzzle-analogy after another with a minimal uniting plot, ie. Alice is a pawn in a real-life chess game trying to become a queen.

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Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The same as I remembered it from childhood.

Claims to begin at Christmastime even though the girls are sitting outside.

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Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs

Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

It was okay. Mostly boring. Barely even an adventure story as one challenge was met, and not very surprising. I forced myself to finish it so I could say I did. But it was pretty clear it wasn't going to get any better pretty early on.

I never really got invested in any of the characters except maybe the grandfather, who had an interesting life story, and an interesting way of relating with his grandson.

[Small spoiler alert.] The only thing I liked about it was the concept of time loops but it wasn't used to any fun effect. In fact, at the end of the book, they just changed the rules of the time loops for no discernible reason.

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A Swiftly Tilting Planet by Madeleine L'Engle

A Swiftly Tilting Planet by Madeleine L'Engle
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I wish I had written notes on what I thought of this book when I read it as a kid. I didn't so these are just my thoughts from my adult-rereading. It skips ahead about 10 years, and Charles Wallace is 15 now and Meg is married and pregnant. It seems a bit different than the others in that the challenge is overcome indirectly by altering the course of a family history in one place over time. This one has more legitimate time travel than the first two. However, the magical creature involved, a unicorn, is decidedly less cool than the multi-eyed dragon thing in A Wind in the Door (#2). The story is generally more adult and has a lot more structure. I recommend jotting down the family tree as you read though because the genealogy gets very confusing.

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Wind in the Door by Madeleine L'Engle

A Wind in the Door by Madeleine L'Engle
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I don't care for the title of the book. It would be better named The Hole in the Sky, The Nothingness, The Wind in the Trees, or um, The Sick Mitochondria? Haha, okay the last one is bad, but at least then I could remember what the book is about when I see it on my shelf.

I gave this 3 stars as an adult, but to be fair I gave it 4 stars in my reading journal when I was a kid.

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A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle

A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I first read this book when I was a kid - probably when I was 12. I made my way through the other books in the series as well, so I know I loved it. As an adult, I saw the movie and it ruined the story for me. But having sufficiently forgotten the movie now, I read the book again and I found that it mostly stands up.

Also, I googled the word "tesseract" and I enjoy the crazy internet rabbit hole it takes you down: geometry, architecture, religion, science.

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Behind the Attic Wall by Sylvia Cassedy

Behind the Attic Wall by Sylvia Cassedy
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

One of my favorites as a child. It has a Secret Garden vibe but it's way more fun and fantastical. I hope to reread it soon.

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Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (#1) by J.K. Rowling

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

In my heart, this will always be the best one. Everyone was already talking about this series when I first read the first book in 2001. I was 22, and I was really dubious about reading a children's book at first, but a few pages in, I was cheering for the boy under the stairs. The whole book was so aggressively charming and magical. I wish I'd had the pleasure of reading it as a kid when the wall between pretend and reality isn't so clear.

This is the book where we meet: Harry Potter- the loyal outsider!, Ron Weasley- the courageous poor kid!, Hermione Granger- the smartest in the class! We also meet Albus Dumbledore!, half-giant Rubeus Hagrid, Professor Severus Snape!, Professor Minerva McGonagall, Neville Longbottom!, and Ron's siblings: Ginny, Fred, George, and Percy. In other words, we meet all our best friends at Hogwarts.

We also meet the less inspiring: Petunia Dursley, Vernon Dursley, Dudley Dursley, groundskeeper Filius Flitwick, Draco Malfoy, Professor Quirinus Quirrell, Professor Pomona Sprout.

And of course, we hear about Lord Voldemort, Lily Potter, and James Potter.

Don't forget to get your wand from Ollivander's! The invisibility cloak is the best ever!

Some potential spoilers up next. (Is there anyone who hasn't read this yet?) I don't know who won at Quidditch. Gryffindor wins 2 of its 3 matches, and we never hear who wins Slytherin-Hufflepuff, Slytherin-Ravenclaw, or Ravenclaw-Hufflepuff. What's to stop these games from being 3-way ties with 3 the teams winning 2 of their 3 games? Or even two-way ties with 2 teams winning 2 games, with no championship game?

The Sorcerer's Stone (or the Philosopher's Stone in the British version I own) lets you live forever. Now that I'm an old-hearted adult, that sounds like a terrible curse to me. Also, in my opinion, the mirror in the story is way more memorable than the stone. The mirror lets you see your heart's desire!

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The Last Battle by C.S. Lewis

The Last Battle by C.S. Lewis
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I didn't like this one, though having read the reviews, I seem to have a unique reason for not having liked it.

First, let me briefly address the other concerns people mentioned. Yes, there's some distaste for other religions, but the treatment of the honest prince of another religion clarifies that it's the good values not the right God that's the issue for Lewis. This is generous of Lewis, but it's not Christianity, which does indeed require belief in precisely the right God.

Second, I don't think it's so horrible that the "happy ending" is that everyone is dead in heaven, nor do I think in such a situation Susan's "punishment" is very terrible as it's only of a temporary nature. It's going to be a rough life for Susan, but it will be a longer one with it's own rewards, and eventually she'll probably also get to Narnia-Heaven. It's going to be a rough sad life, yeah, but possibly also good with a husband, kids, and maybe she'll become a train-safety reformer or something.

The main reason I don't like this book is how totally off-base and contradictory it is. Tirian says that it would have been better to die than to live and learn that Aslan was so different than he thought he'd be. In other words, he didn't want to learn that Aslan was evil on earth... though it turns out he's not! This concept is repeated over and over again in the book so I'm really not nitpicking here. Did Lewis live a charmed life? Do children not starve on earth? Do people not die of horrible diseases and train accidents? If Aslan didn't order people to be sold into slavery didn't he allow it? We can barely tell if allowed a train accident to happen at the end of he actually caused it mostly because it doesn't make a difference. We're supposed to believe either that "God works in mysterious ways" or that the afterlife is the life that matters so our own suffering on earth doesn't make a difference. Tirian would make a very poor Christian, and is not even a very good Aslan-follower.

Also, the entire first half the book was depressing and boring. It would have been one star but I do enjoy their run through heaven. It's a lovely wish.

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The Magician's Nephew by C.S. Lewis

The Magician's Nephew by C.S. Lewis
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I remember this being my favorite one when I was young and it was still very strong. Except for the discussion of healing the sick which seems pretty offensive now. (If you're a fan of Lev Grossman's Magicians which bases Fillory on Narnia, this might be the most fun book to read or reread.)

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The Horse and His Boy by C.S. Lewis

The Horse and His Boy by C.S. Lewis
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is my new favorite Narnia book! I don't think I ever read this one as a child actually. I might have skipped it? Or maybe I had just completely forgotten it because I know I read the next one in the series. I tried to read this one with James but I think it was a little above his head. Might keep trying, but I was sufficiently into it that I wanted to finish it myself.

This one isn't a bunch of random adventures, but one straightforward story with developed characters and explorations of bravery, social class, and politics. The religious aspect of the book is not cumbersome in this one either and actually help to unite the story. Lewis has created a world with no coincidences, but coincidences in novels often seem contrived and lazy anyway so I can't fault this aspect of the religious storyline.

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The Silver Chair by C.S. Lewis

The Silver Chair by C.S. Lewis
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A bit heavy-handed in the analogies again. More fun than Prince Caspian but maybe less fun than Dawn Treader. Kind of the same, random adventures capped with extremely obvious Christian analogy. Specifically: life after death.

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The Voyage of the "Dawn Treader" by C.S. Lewis

The Voyage of the "Dawn Treader" by C.S. Lewis
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

C.S. Lewis's Christian version of The Odyssey. The crew sails to islands at the end of the world and faces a number of adventures and challenges.

Eustace is probably the best part of the book because he's funny-nasty in that he has no idea that he's in a magical world so he thinks the other characters are acting like madmen and he's also hilariously selfish. I would have preferred that his conversion be less complete for the sake of staying interesting. Reepicheep the warrior mouse is pretty great too.

Why can't Lucy make herself more beautiful? It's not the use of magic- after all she uses magic for the visibility spell. Oh well.


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Prince Caspian by C.S. Lewis

Prince Caspian by C.S. Lewis
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The first time I read this book I was a little kid and found it terribly depressing and boring that Narnia had lost all its magic. I must have been older than when I read the first book, TLTW&TW because I did understand the religious allegory, I just found it unpersuasive. On an adult reread, I don't find it depressing at all, though it's still a bit boring, and definitely not convincing. Also, someone explain to me why Aslan is hanging out with Bacchus and his orgy maidens?

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The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The first time I read this I was a little kid and I don't think I picked up on all the Christian allegory stuff. The second time I was a little older and did but I did my best to ignore it. This time, I've read some of C.S. Lewis nonfiction about Christianity so I kept an eye for how some of his philosophy was written right into the story. Beyond the more obvious story of Aslan, the professor's thoughts on whether or not Lucy is telling the truth is the thesis of Mere Christianity. I mostly remember reading this but I wanted to reread it before rereading the others.

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