Borrowing heavily from Hamlet, this second adventure of the Pevensie siblings (but fourth chrononologically, which is how I'm reading them to my boys) is a bit of a mixed bag.

What I liked:
•All four siblings are back for another adventure.
•The time lapse element -- a year in England has been roughly 1000 years in Narnia, meaning everyone they knew (except immortal Aslan) is dead and Narnia is greatly changed.
•Aslan's wild pagan romp, which includes Bacchus (in more of a Puck incarnation) and Silenus.
•New characters: Trumpkin the dwarf, Trufflehunter the badger, and Reepicheep the mouse! And the unnamed Bulgy Bear who can't stop sucking on his paw.

What I didn't like:
•Once again, no one believes Lucy, because Aslan only reveals himself to her at first. Her faith is tested (gag!), but she prevails in the end. Okay, we get it already, Mr. Lewis.
•Boys go to battle while girls pet Aslan and wake up the dancing trees. (Although, they do get the pagan romp instead of having to wrestle with a hag, a wer-wolf, and a corrupted dwarf as their brothers do.)
•Prince Caspian is a bit of a dud. For a literary orphan, he lacks personality, but apparently his faith and his bloodline qualify him to be king.
•The Telmarines are supposedly decended from pirates (which I like), but the time line gets all skewy then. If Narnia was created in 1900 (English time) -- when Digory (AKA Professor Kirke) was a kid -- when did these pirates come through the cave entrance? I think the timeline only gets wonkier from here, with time passing inconsistently. ( )

(Harper Collins Publishers) 1994 0-06-023483-0 h

Just to be honest, this installment didn't hit as hard as its predecessors. There were a few beautiful turns of phrase, such as the idea that Aslan grows larger as the beholder grows older or that he remains unseen by those who don't have the faith to follow him. But, on the whole, it just lacked some of the depth that we've become accustomed to in Narnia. Still a good read, and I'm looking forward to the next one. ( )

I read [b:The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe|100915|The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (Chronicles of Narnia, #2)|C.S. Lewis|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1353029077s/100915.jpg|4790821] as a child, but never went on to read the whole series. I finally decided to try this one yesterday out of mild curiosity, and I quite enjoyed it. It's an amiable fantasy tale with nothing really disagreeable about it, I like the way it starts, this time none of the children behave badly, and there's a conventional villain instead of the bizarre White Witch. But it's a slight book that seems to be over quickly, and the story could be summarized quickly and simply.

It makes another little adventure for the Pevensie children, but a very much briefer adventure than their previous one, and they don't really have anything important to do in it. The forces of the bad king are basically overcome by Aslan, who could have done that at any time he chose, with or without the Pevensies.

Revealing himself initially only to Lucy seems like pointless teasing.

It also seems rather odd of Aslan to assert that Narnia can be ruled only by a human, although its native inhabitants aren't human. The Narnia books are known to be written from a Christian point of view; are they also written from an imperialist point of view?

I might have given this book three stars but for its slightness and the way Aslan sweeps in and makes the struggles of the other characters seem irrelevant.

At the end, Aslan tells Peter and Susan they're now too old to return to Narnia. Why? Because these are supposed to be children's books? Seems pretty arbitrary. Especially as they all grew well into adulthood in Narnia during the previous book. ( )

I did enjoy seeing the children go back to Narnia. Although a year had passed for them things had changed in Narnia which I found interesting. ( )