Hi guys, my name is Alissa and today I am
here with a book tasting on an old classic.
Most of our book tastings have given you guys
a little bit more information about some of
the new books we have in our system.
However, I wanted to go back to something
that was a little more familiar to me and
some of you also who have read it.
Sometimes during a crisis it can be help you
feel better by reading or watching something
that’s familiar and that you like a lot.
So today I’m going to be giving a book tasting
on The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, which
is part of the Chronicles of Narnia by C.S.
Lewis, I’m going to be reading a chapter,
with the kind permission of HarperCollins
Publishers.
This book is available through Overdrive as
an ebook and an audiobook.
It has a Lexile of 940, it is worth 9 scholastic
reading counts points.
And it is 5.7 level in AR for 6 points.
I’m not going to tell you too much about
what goes on in the story, because I think
many people are already very familiar with
it, but it takes place during World War 2,
when four siblings are sent from the city
to live in the country to be safe and they
are drawn into a magical world and also a
really big battle of good against evil.
It’s a magical story and one that’s very
close to my heart and whether or not you are
going to take a look at it because it’s
an old favorite or you feel like it’s a
good time to start it for the first time,
I hope you enjoy this book tasting.
Chapter 1, Lucy looks into a wardrobe.
Once there were four children whose names
were Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy.
This story is about something that happened
to them when they were sent away from London
during the war because of the air-raids.
They were sent to the house of an old Professor
who lived in the heart of the country, ten
miles from the nearest railway station and
two miles from the nearest post office.
He had no wife and he lived in a very large
house with a housekeeper called Mrs. Macready
and three servants.
(Their names were Ivy, Margaret and Betty,
but they do not come into the story much.)
He himself was a very old man with shaggy
white hair which grew over most of his face
as well as on his head, and they liked him
almost at once; but on the first evening when
he came out to meet them at the front door
he was so odd-looking that Lucy (who was the
youngest) was a little afraid of him, and
Edmund (who was the next youngest) wanted
laugh and had to keep pretending be was blowing
his nose to hide it.
As soon as they had said goodbye goodnight
to the Professor and gone upstairs on the
first night, the boys came into the girls’
room and they all talked it over.
“We’ve fallen on our feet and no mistake,”
said, Peter.
“This is going to be perfectly splendid.
That old chap will let us do anything we like.”
“I think he’s an old dear,” said Susan.
“Oh, come off it!” said Edmund, who was
tired and pretending not to be tired, which
always made him bad-tempered.
“Don’t go on talking like that.”
“Like what?” said Susan; “And anyway,
it’s time you were in bed.”
“Trying to talk like Mother,” said Edmund.
“And who are you to say when I’m to go
to bed?
Go to bed yourself.”
“Hadn’t we all better go to bed,” said
Lucy.
“There’s sure to be a row if we’re heard
talking here.”
“No there won’t be,” said Peter.
“I tell you this is the sort of house where
no one’s going to mind what we do.
Anyway, they won’t hear us.
It’s about ten minutes’ walk from here
down to that dining-room, and any amount of
stairs and passages in between.”
“What’s that noise,” said Lucy suddenly.
“It was a far larger house than she had
ever been in before and the thought of all
those long passages and rows of doors leading
into empty rooms were beginning to make her
feel a little creepy. “it’s only a bird,
silly,” said Edmund.
“It’s an owl,” said Peter.
“This is going to be a wonderful place for
birds.
I shall go to bed now.
I say, let’s go and explore tomorrow.
You might find anything in a place like this.
Did you see those mountains as we came along?
And the woods?
There might be eagles.
There might be stags.
There’ll be hawks.”
“Badgers!” said Lucy.
“Foxes!” said Edmund.
“Rabbits! said Susan.
But when the next morning came there was a
steady rain falling, so thick that when you
looked out of the window you could see neither
the mountains nor the woods nor even the stream
in the garden.
“Of course it would be raining!” said
Edmund.
They had just finished their breakfast with
the Professor and were upstairs in the room
he had set apart for them – a long, low
room with two windows looking out in one direction
and two in another.
“Do stop grumbling, Ed,” said Susan.
“Ten to one it’ll clear up in an hour
or so.
And in the meantime we’re pretty well off.
There’s a wireless and lots of books.”
“Not for me,” said Peter; “I’m going
to explore in the house.”
Everyone agreed to this and that was how the
adventures began.
It was the sort of house that you never seem
to come to the end of, and it was full of
unexpected places.
The first few doors they tried led only into
spare bedrooms, as everyone had expected that
they would; but soon they came to a very long
room full of pictures, and there they found
a suit of armor; and after that was room all
hung with green, with a harp in one corner;
and then came three steps down and five steps
up, and then a kind of little upstairs hall
and a door that led out onto a balcony, and
then a whole series of rooms that led into
each other were lined with books – most
of them very old and some bigger than a Bible
in a church.
And shortly after that they looked into a
room that was quite empty except for one big
wardrobe; the sort that has a looking-glass
in the door.
There was nothing else in the room at all
except a dead bluebottle on the window-sill.
“Nothing there!” said Peter, and they
all trooped out again – all except Lucy.
She stayed behind because she thought it would
be worthwhile trying the door of the wardrobe,
even though she felt almost sure that it would
be locked.
To her surprise it opened quite easily.
And two mothballs dropped out.
Looking into the inside, she saw several coats
hanging up – mostly long fur coats.
There was nothing Lucy liked so much as the
smell and feel of fur.
She immediately stepped into the wardrobe
and got in among the coats and rubbed her
face against them, leaving the door open,
of course, because she knew that it was a
very foolish to set oneself into any wardrobe.
Soon she went further in and found that there
was a second row of coats hanging up behind
the first one.
It was almost quite dark in there and she
kept her arms stretched out in front of her
so as not to bump her face into the back of
the wardrobe.
She took a step further in – then two or
three steps – always expecting to feel woodwork
against the tip of her fingers.
But she could not feel it.
“This must be a simply enormous wardrobe!”
thought Lucy, going still further in and pushing
the soft folds of the coats aside to make
room for her.
Then she noticed there was something crunching
under her feet.
“I wonder is that more mothballs?” she
thought, stooping down to feel it with her hand.
But instead of feeling the hard, smooth wood
of the floor of the wardrobe, she felt something
soft and powdery and extremely cold.
“That is very queer,” she said, and went
on a step or two further.
Next moment she found that what was rubbing
against her face and hands was no longer soft
fur but something hard and rough and even
prickly.
“Why, it is just like branches of trees!”
exclaimed Lucy.
And then she saw that there was a light ahead
of her; not a few inches away where the back
of the wardrobe ought to have been, but a
long way off.
Something cold and soft was falling on her.
A moment later she found that she was standing
in the middle of a wood at night with snow
under her feet and snowflakes falling through
the air.
Lucy felt a little frightened, but she felt
very inquisitive and excited as well.
She looked back over her shoulder and there,
between the dark tree-trunks, she could still
see the open doorway of the wardrobe and even
catch a glimpse of the empty room from which she had set out.
(She had, of course, left the door open, for
she knew that it is a very silly thing to
shut oneself into a wardrobe.)
It seemed to be still daylight there, “I
can always get back if anything goes wrong,”
thought Lucy.
She began to walk forward, crunch-crunch over
the snow and through the wood towards the
other light.
In about ten minutes she reached it and found
it was a lamp-post.
As she stood looking at it, wondering why
there was a lamp-post in the middle of a wood
and wondering what to do next, she heard a
pitter patter of feet coming towards her.
And soon after that a very strange person
stepped out from among the trees into the
light of the lamp-post.
He was only a little taller than Lucy herself
and he carried over his head an umbrella,
white with snow.
From the waist upwards he was like a man,
but his legs were shaped like a goat’s (the
hair on them was glossy black) and instead
of feet he had goat’s hoofs.
He also had a tail, but Lucy did not notice
this at first because it was neatly caught
up over the arm that held the umbrella so
as to keep it from trailing in the snow.
He had red woolen muffler around his neck,
and his skin was rather reddish too.
He had a strange, but pleasant little face,
with a short pointed beard and curly hair,
and out of the hair there stuck two horns,
one on each side of his forehead.
One of his hands, as I have said, held the
umbrella; in the other arm he carried several
brown-paper parcels.
What with the parcels and the snow it looked
just as if he had been doing his Christmas
shopping.
He was a Faun.
And when he saw Lucy he gave such a start
of surprise that he dropped all his parcels.
“Goodness gracious me!”
exclaimed the Faun.
I hope you have enjoyed this chapter of "The
Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe."
This is the first book that was published
in the series of the Chronicles of Narnia.
There is a prequel, which is called the "Magician’s
Nephew," which is the technical beginning but
it was published after all of the first six
were written.
I hope you have enjoyed this, if you are interested
in reading this book, and you take a look,
and let us know what you thought by emailing
us at kids@lcplin.org.
Again that’s kids, k-i-d-s@lcplin.org.
Tell us what you thought, have a good day.
