Once Upon a Wardrobe

This is a great idea for a story line, and its very well written. I'd recommend this for a light holiday read. Maybe I'm pedantic but I tripped up at a number of points of detail where I felt the research was superficial. That's possibly because I'm from Ireland and felt she could have made a better effort on her geography. Also the thought of plastic chairs and automatic lifts in a hospital in 1950 didn't work for me. Otherwise, worth a read if you're interested in Narnia and CS Lewis

“George is waiting for his Megs to come home for the weekend from university so he can tell her about this remarkable book, about this white land where it is always winter but never Christmas, where animals can talk and the back of a wardrobe opens to another world.” - ‘Once Upon A Wardrobe’ by Patti Callahan. This was a wonderful novel that explores the power of storytelling and its ability to inspire and bring hope. 1950, Worcester. Eight-year-old George Devonshire has a heart condition and only has a short time to live. He has become captivated by a new book titled ‘The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe’. He bombards his older sister, Megs, with questions about where Narnia came from. Megs is a scholarship student at Oxford studying mathematics. In order to help her brother she tentatively approaches the famous author and his brother and implores them for answers. They agree, though what she receives over a series of meetings are stories about Jack Lewis’ life. She returns home and relays these stories to George. This was a beautifully crafted novel that I found deeply moving. I was transported back to my own childhood when I first read ‘The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe’ and had dreamt of finding a secret door into Narnia. It is a novel that is heartwarming and uplifting yet does not shy away from exploring loss. Just perfection.

What a wonderful idea – to tell the story of some of CS Lewis’s formative years in this way. This novel is set in 1950. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe has been published and one terminally sick little boy – George – is enchanted by it. His sister, Megs, is a student at Oxford where CS Lewis is a lecturer and George begs her to ask Mr Lewis where Narnia is (or at least, where the idea came from). She plucks up the courage to ask him and he doesn’t tell her in so many words – instead, he regales her with stories of his childhood, which she writes down and takes back to her brother. In the process, she learns more about herself than she realises. It’s a coming of age story (for Megs), and a tender tale of the loss her family knows is coming, and have to learn to face up to. It was fascinating to learn more about CS Lewis in such an entertaining format, and the author is clearly deeply invested in the life and works of one of our most prized scholars. I only had one gripe, but it was like a splinter under a fingernail – impossible to ignore (especially as the word showed up so often because Megs was studying mathematics). British people do mathS. With an S. Not math. We certainly never say ‘math’. I appreciate the author is American, I also appreciate how difficult it is to get everything culturally correct (what even is a ‘stoop’?) and on the whole she did a relatively good job. But it would have been nice if the publishers had asked an English person to read the manuscript during the editing process, to point out the differences. All in all, though, this was a lovely book, perfect to read on a wintry December day.

Superb. Breathtaking. Heart-true. Each moment another revelation. Megs will do whatever she can to bring the answer back to her brother George, who is ill. And the answers emerge from everywhere, as it turns out, from everywhere just exactly as art and myth and Bible and legend and The Lord of the Rings, and The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe and all of our human aspiration for TRUTH all emerge, to be held out before us on our palms, and to be loved by our hearts. Patti Callahan gave us C.S. Lewis and Joy Davidman in her powerful human drama of love and writing when she gave us Becoming Mrs. Lewis. Now, she has done us one step more beautifully by giving us "the rest of the story" as it is desired and as it comes to be received, for eight-year-old George. Please read this book. I am a 76-year-old man, a deep reader of the times Callahan depicts by making them come alive now, and from my own experience, I can tell you that you will cry.

I don't say this often, but WOW. Once Upon a Wardrobe may well be the best money I ever spent, at least in Kindle books. As early on as 30 pages in, I kept checking my page number to see how much longer I could stay in this beautiful story. And yes, Once Upon a Wardrobe is a story that invites you to stay. It's as warm and enchanting as Narnia and the Kilns put together. As with Becoming Mrs. Lewis, Patti Callahan brought both locales to life, combining painstaking detail with a comfortingly paced, engaging narrative so all those details don't overwhelm the reader. As happened with Becoming Mrs. Lewis, I sorely wanted to visit, and not just the Kilns. This time, she brought Little Lea, Oxford, and Worcester to life as well. Of course, settings don't come to life without three-dimensional characters, and Wardrobe has plenty. I don't know C.S. Lewis outside of his books, but I think Patti got him exactly right. In one way, he's a younger, trimmer Father Christmas. In another, he's the stern but lighthearted Professor. Sometimes he's the unfailingly logical scholar and other times, the maker of myths, and always the believer in the True Myth. Naturally, Patti probably had some help from research since C.S. Lewis was a real person. But I don't think I've ever seen a character with all the depths and pieces so well balanced. The other characters are wonderful, too. Now, you need to know that within Wardrobe, it's pretty clear from the outset who's a "good" character (Jack and Warnie, Megs, George, etc.) and who's a "bad" character (Oldie, Wyn, even Lewis Sr. to a point). Normally I wouldn't like that, but here, it's okay. Why? Because Wardrobe, though true, has the structure and spirit of a fairy tale, where good is set up to win, even if not everything that happens is good or right. Additionally, even though the characters are easy to understand, they remain relatable and almost achingly human. You get the sense that the "bad" characters had reasons, if twisted ones, for what they did. As for the good characters, they're never perfect or sappy. For instance, I love how Patti handled George's heart condition and relationship with Megs. Yes, George is facing death. Yes, it's tragic, and yes, Megs loves him deeper and harder because of it. But Wardrobe never comes across as a sappy, "Please tell us where Narnia comes from because it's my poor brother's last wish" story. Instead, what we get is a deep sibling relationship and exploration of humanity through Narnia. Ah, yes, Narnia. Now we're getting into the good stuff. I absolutely adored how Patti handles the question, "Where did Narnia come from?" Part of the answer is obvious, in that readers can see the threads of Narnia in C.S. Lewis' experiences. I also wondered at times why Megs didn't seem to make that connection, or if she did, why it didn't satisfy George's que...