Magicians Nephew Study Guide

Uncle Andrew's experiments send Polly and Digory to strange other worlds, but an encounter with the sinister Queen Jadis brings evil to the land of Narnia on the day of it's creation. C. S. Lewis's sixth book about Narnia is now considered to be the first book in this celebrated series, recounting how Aslan, the Great Lion, created Narnia, and how all the Narnia stories began. Setting: Fantasy Pgs: 64

This is the story of the six Bastable children: Dora, Oswald, Dicky, Alice, Noël and little Horace Octavius, known as H. O. Due to their mother tragically passing away and their father’s business partner running away with the money, the ancient and most noble House of Bastable, as the children like to call it, has fallen. In order to restore their family fortune the resourceful siblings go on a hunt for treasure; but whether they dig for gold in the garden, or try to open up a sherry business, their treasure-hunting always ends up getting them in trouble. The Story of the Treasure Seekers was the first novel for children written by Edith Nesbit, and today it is one of her most well-known. The stories of the Bastable children were first published between 1894 and 1899 in a variety of periodicals. For the one-volume publication in 1899 the order of the stories was changed, and several of the stories underwent extensive rewriting. This and her later novels inspired several later writers of English children’s literature, amongst them C. S. Lewis, who references the Bastable children in The Magician’s Nephew. The Story of the Treasure Seekers spawned two sequels, The Wouldbegoods in 1901 and New Treasure Seekers in 1904.

For over half a century, scholars have laboured to show that C. S. Lewis's famed but apparently disorganised Chronicles of Narnia have an underlying symbolic coherence, pointing to such possible unifying themes as the seven sacraments, the seven deadly sins, and the seven books of Spenser's Faerie Queene. None of these explanations has won general acceptance and the structure of Narnia's symbolism has remained a mystery. Michael Ward has finally solved the enigma. In Planet Narnia he demonstrates that medieval cosmology, a subject which fascinated Lewis throughout his life, provides the imaginative key to the seven novels. Drawing on the whole range of Lewis's writings (including previously unpublished drafts of the Chronicles), Ward reveals how the Narnia stories were designed to express the characteristics of the seven medieval planets - - Jupiter, Mars, Sol, Luna, Mercury, Venus, and Saturn - - planets which Lewis described as "spiritual symbols of permanent value" and "especially worthwhile in our own generation". Using these seven symbols, Lewis secretly constructed the Chronicles so that in each book the plot-line, the ornamental details, and, most important, the portrayal of the Christ-figure of Aslan, all serve to communicate the governing planetary personality. The cosmological theme of each Chronicle is what Lewis called 'the kappa element in romance', the atmospheric essence of a story, everywhere present but nowhere explicit. The reader inhabits this atmosphere and thus imaginatively gains conna?tre knowledge of the spiritual character which the tale was created to embody. Planet Narnia is a ground-breaking study that will provoke a major revaluation not only of the Chronicles, but of Lewis's whole literary and theological outlook. Ward uncovers a much subtler writer and thinker than has previously been recognized, whose central interests were hiddenness, immanence, and knowledge by acquaintance.

New York Times Bestseller Winner of the Women's Prize for Fiction World Fantasy Awards Finalist From the New York Times bestselling author of Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, an intoxicating, hypnotic new novel set in a dreamlike alternative reality. Piranesi's house is no ordinary building: its rooms are infinite, its corridors endless, its walls are lined with thousands upon thousands of statues, each one different from all the others. Within the labyrinth of halls an ocean is imprisoned; waves thunder up staircases, rooms are flooded in an instant. But Piranesi is not afraid; he understands the tides as he understands the pattern of the labyrinth itself. He lives to explore the house. There is one other person in the house-a man called The Other, who visits Piranesi twice a week and asks for help with research into A Great and Secret Knowledge. But as Piranesi explores, evidence emerges of another person, and a terrible truth begins to unravel, revealing a world beyond the one Piranesi has always known. For readers of Neil Gaiman's The Ocean at the End of the Lane and fans of Madeline Miller's Circe, Piranesi introduces an astonishing new world, an infinite labyrinth, full of startling images and surreal beauty, haunted by the tides and the clouds.

Enchanted by Narnia's fantastic world as a child, prominent critic Laura Miller returns to the series as an adult to uncover the source of these small books' mysterious power by looking at their creator, Clive Staples Lewis. What she discovers is not the familiar, idealized image of the author, but a more interesting and ambiguous truth: Lewis's tragic and troubled childhood, his unconventional love life, and his intense but ultimately doomed friendship with J.R.R. Tolkien. Finally reclaiming Narnia "for the rest of us," Miller casts the Chronicles as a profoundly literary creation, and the portal to a lifelong adventure in books, art, and the imagination.

Our hardcover and paperback digest editions of THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA are now graced with new jacket and cover art by 2-time Caldecott medalist David Wiesner.

Part coming of age, part call to action, this fast-paced #ownvoices novel about a Deaf teenager is a unique and inspiring exploration of what it means to belong. Smart, artistic, and independent, sixteen year old Piper is tired of trying to conform. Her mom wants her to be “normal,” to pass as hearing, to get a good job. But in a time of food scarcity, environmental collapse, and political corruption, Piper has other things on her mind—like survival. Piper has always been told that she needs to compensate for her Deafness in a world made for those who can hear. But when she meets Marley, a new world opens up—one where Deafness is something to celebrate, and where resilience means taking action, building a com-munity, and believing in something better. Published to rave reviews as Future Girl in Australia (Allen & Unwin, Sept. 2020), this empowering, unforgettable story is told through a visual extravaganza of text, paint, collage, and drawings. Set in an ominously prescient near future, The Words in My Hands is very much a novel for our turbulent times.

When Polly Plummer meets Digory Kirke, he is very unhappy. His father is away in India, and he and his mother, who is very ill, have moved to London to live with an uncle and an aunt. Digory is convinced that his Uncle Andrew is either mad, or has a very important secret. Digory has been warned by his aunt to stay away from Uncle Andrew's study, and he's heard strange noises coming from the room late at night. Digory and Polly become friends, and because of the cold, wet summer days, they are forced to play indoors. While exploring a tunnel that connects their houses, the children accidentally find themselves in Uncle Andrew's study. Uncle Andrew seems delighted to see the children, but Digory and Polly are frightened and anxious to escape. Uncle Andrew considers himself to be a great magician. He explains that he is conducting an experiment and needs two children as subjects. He gives the children yellow and green rings which, when they are put on, transport Digory and Polly to a peaceful woodland dotted with pools. They soon discover that they are in a wood between worlds. By wearing the green rings and jumping into a pool, they can enter and explore any number of worlds. Though both children desire to return home, their desire to explore is greater. Assuring themselves that they can return home whenever they want, Polly and Digory try another pool. They appear in the dying world of Charn and begin to explore its ruins. But when Digory's curiosity gets the better of him, he accidentaly wakes the evil Queen Jadis, who caused the destruction of Charn. When the children try to escape they discover they have accidentally brought Jadis back to London with them. In an effort to return Jadis to her own world, Digory and Polly return to the wood and, together with Jadis, jump into a pool. To their dismay they end up, not in Charn, but in a brand new world on the day of its creation. There they meet Aslan, the great Lion, creator of the new world, Narnia. But the children's actions have brought evil to Narnia in the form of Queen Jadis. In order to save Narnia, Aslan sends Digory on a quest to undo the wrong he has done to Narnia on the day of its birth. Interactive CD-rom.