Chronicles of Wonder: The Story-Formed Life of C. S. Lewis by Leah Boden

Chronicles of Wonder introduces kids to the life and work of C. S. Lewis in this volume of the Tales of Boldness and Faith Series.

Chronicles of Wonder: The Story-Formed Life of C. S. Lewis by Leah Boden. Christian Focus, 2009. 192 pages.

Reading Level: Middle Grades, ages 10-12

Recommended For: ages 10-12

Most of our readers are familiar with C. S. Lewis because of the Narnia Chronicles, and, of course, that’s what the title will remind you of! But the Narnia Chronicles come fairly late in Lewis’s life story, and Leah Boden begins at the beginning, with Jack and Warnie and their parents.

C. S. Lewis was called Jack for nearly his entire life. His older brother went by Warnie, and the two grew up in Ireland with their loving parents. From their cozy home, both boys went to boarding school, sometimes the same school and sometimes different. Jack struggled at school, but when he learned to read, he quickly fell in love with books and the escape they offered him.

Jack ended up as a professor of English literature and friends with the likes of J. R. R. Tolkien. Most of us know that. But he also sacrificed much time to care for the mother of one of his friends who died in the war (WWI), and with her and Warnie, offered respite in their home for children evacuees from London during WWII. He did not grow up a professing Christian; that happened much later in life. After reading this account of his life, readers will have a much better understanding of C. S. Lewis as a person as well as a glimpse into some of his inspiration for the Narnia Chronicles.

This is a “fictionalized” biography. As such, quotes have occasionally been paraphrased and sometimes inserted in places where they didn’t originally occur. For instance, a sentence from a letter Lewis wrote might be used as a direct comment by him to someone entirely different from the original letter recipient. The footnotes indicate many of these instances. But it can be difficult to determine sometimes what is authorial embellishment and what Lewis might have really felt.

Readers shouldn’t pass this book up simply because it is a fictionalized biography. Readers will come to understand C. S. Lewis better as a person, and Boden casts a good picture of what life was like during Lewis’s day.

Bottom Line: This will make for a fun family read aloud (or independent read for ages 10-12), but for more scholarly study of Lewis, readers should look for a more traditional biography.

Related Reading From Redeemed Reader

• A Review: Finding Narnia by Caroline McAllister – a picture book biography of Lewis
• A Review: Painting Wonder by Katie Wray Schon – a picture book biography of Pauline Baynes, illustrator of the Narnia books
• A Review: The Mythmakers by John Hendrix – a graphic novel about both Lewis and Tolkien (and fantasy and more!)

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