Part of our night time routine (on nights I’m home at bed time) is once the boys are all in bed I read to them. We’ve mostly been working our way through C.S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia, with a detour to Alice in Wonderland the other month. We average a few nights a week, which means it typically takes about a month to work through a novel.

Tonight we finished The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (in the correct ordering of the Narnia books, it’s the third one). So far it has been the most enjoyable to read, mostly because the boys have been so into it. They’re talking about it, gasps of shock at discoveries, completely into it. Definitely a lot of fun. I think part of it was simply that every chapter or two the characters were on to a completely different adventure – definitely a great story telling decision on Lewis’ part.

One of the interesting things in this one was the silence of Aslan. He was invisible most of the book, and even when he did encounter characters, it was usually one at a time and we would ‘hear’ about it after the fact. The boys were pumped every time he was mentioned, and it was cool seeing them making a lot of the connections between our faith in God and the connections Lewis made in his story. Partially it was more blatant in this book, but they’re also being more intentional in looking for it. I like that they are learning to search for meaning in their entertainment – everything has a message, and we should always be aware of the message we are being given in whatever it is we are watching, listening to, or engaging in.

All that to say, I think it’s safe to safe we’re all excited to begin The Silver Chair and discover how Eustace returns to Narnia.