Book review: "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" by C.S. Lewis

(read in Spanish)

This is a book I should've read in Spanish a long time ago, when I was on a lower level than I'm now. It is exactly what I needed back then - a quickly moving plot, uncomplicated language, without difficult concepts. Being basically a fairy tale, the "Chronicles of Narnia" is *the* series of books for language learners. Although now I found it quite simple to read (after having read Dumas and Paul Auster in Spanish), I still enjoyed it quite a lot.

It's a first volume of "Narnia" - that is, the first book of the series C.S. Lewis has written. He later wrote a prequel to it, and people are still having "holy wars" over which reading order is the correct one. Since it seems that it doesn't really matter, I just picked this one first.

"The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" really reminded me of the fairy tales I was reading when I was a small kid. Good vs. bad (the good wins, of course !), valiant protagonists who are children, which makes it easy for young readers to connect, speaking animals, a beautiful scenery and some magic - just the recipe for a fun children book.

I was a little bit dissapointed with the end, however, which to my taste is too simplistic - I can almost say it's an anticlimax of an otherwise nicely developing "tension". I guess the fact that this book is indended first and foremost for children plays a role here. It's not too bad though, and doesn't deduct too much from the overall experience.

So, as I mentioned, I think this book is perfect for adult language-learners in the "beginner" stage, especially ones that haven't read the Narnia series before. I think I'll read another one or two of the series...