Hey, everybody! Welcome back to Tumnus’ Bookshelf, where we review any and all books written by, about, and inspired by CS Lewis, The Land of Narnia, and The Inklings. For today’s review, we will be looking at the new board book adaptation of The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe illustrated by Joey Chou!
TITLE: The Lion, The Witch, And The Wardrobe (Board Book)
BASED ON THE NOVEL By: CS Lewis
ILLUSTRATOR: Joey Chou
PUBLISHER: Harper Festival.
ISBN-10: 0062988778
ISBN-13: 978-0062988775
Summary: The beloved fantasy classic The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion the Witch, and the Wardrobe is retold in a delightful fairy tale board book.
Review:
As generations of Narnia fans grow older and have families of their own for many of them, finding a way to share their favorite stories with younger readers can be a Herculean task. While the story of The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe has been adapted in a variety of retellings, including Debra Maze’s World of Narnia series, Humphry Tudor’s exquisite picture book, the movie tie-in story book, and Robin Laurie’s 1995 graphic novel. For the most part these retellings have skewed towards older readers, at least 6 and up, there isn’t much for the youngest of friends of Narnia.
It can be very difficult task to share a beloved story like this with younger readers. The books do feature many difficult concepts for children to understand and even some frightening images. Ignoring the Witch’s cronies, the simple fact that the Pevensies are sent away from home because of the Air Raids on London in World War II can be very frightening for children, especially at a developmental stage where they first begin to feel separation anxiety. While the optimal solution would be to just save the book for when they are older, there is no shortage of children’s board books that have adapted classic fairy tales or even featured characters from movies and TV shows like Frozen, Tangled, Moana, Star Wars, Star Trek, and superheroes from DC and Marvel comics.
If these stories can be adapted for young readers, then so too can Narnia, especially when it has so many elements similar to Frozen or Hans Christian Andersen’s The Snow Queen. Imagine my delight and surprise when this book was not only released, but it was in a board book format. While there have been board books inspired by works of classic literature like Pride & Prejudice, Romeo & Juliet, The Hound of the Baskerville’s, Dracula, Frankenstein, A Christmas Carol, Huck Finn, and The Raven many of these books focus on teaching basic concepts like numbers, letters, colors, and sounds. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe is different in that, much like the Little Golden book adaptations of Star Wars or Frozen, it is actually retelling the story.
In many ways the adaptation reminds me of many of the delightful retellings of stories from the Bible I encountered when I was a kid, wherein the parts of the stories that may be too frightening, confusing, or even in the case of the genealogies, boring, for a child to hear are omitted, but the essential points of the story were left intact. I didn’t need to know at the age of two just who begat whom or why it was important, but the story of Jesus calming the storm provided comfort and security to me when I was afraid of thunder and lightning or the dark. Kids won’t know what Turkish Delight is, so it’s just called Candy. The Professor’s trilemma for Lucy is going to confuse a young child so both his argument, and even the professor himself is left out. The second World War isn’t even mentioned, instead focusing on the fun and adventure of the Pevensies discovering this magical land.
Despite all this, the book includes Aslan’s sacrifice for Edmund. Much like the children’s Bible story books and their handling of Jesus death and resurrection, this retelling of Narnia handles Aslan’s sacrifice with the same grace and gentleness for young minds so as to not give them nightmares. That means the book emphasizes Aslan’s compassion and mercy for Edmund over the Witch’s cruelty and brutality, drawing focus on Aslan’s victory overall instead of the Witch’s temporary triumph.
Joey Chou is no stranger to the world of enchanting children’s fantasy stories, with credits that include It’s a Small World, Olaf’s Frozen Adventure, I am a Unicorn, I am a Narwal, and serving as an artist for such films as the Academy Award Winning animated feature Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. His illustrations for this board book not only have a certain warmth and charm to them, but a texture to them, akin to Sunday School flannel graphs. Each character looks distinct and memorable. Aslan looks appropriately strong, while the beavers look cuddly, Tumnus looks whimsical and the Witch literally looks cold and frozen with her blue-ish/purple hues. They draw young readers into the world and keep them engaged.
This is such a delightful adaption of Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Older readers are sure to appreciate its sweet story, and enchanting pictures. More importantly new readers are sure to fall in love with the beloved land of Narnia and its amazing characters. Having read it to my goddaughter a couple of times already, I for one can’t wait to give a copy to my one-year-old nephew!
Five out of five shields
Buy the book on Amazon.com
