Patti Callahan Henry

Megs Devonshire is not much of what you'd call a reader -- as a student at Oxford in physics and mathematics, she has little time for novels. But her little brother George, who has a heart condition, has just read The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, and he wants to know where Narnia comes from. Is it real? The answer that it comes from Mr. Lewis' imagination does not satisfy, so Megs, who would do anything for her little brother, goes on a quest to find the answer. Her path takes her to The Kilns, home of C.S. Lewis and his brother Warnie. When she asks Mr. Lewis her question, he does answer her -- but he does it with stories.

I found many parts of this book charming. Because the stories Lewis tells of his early life serve as a story within the story, Megs and George's actual story are slighter than you might expect, but there's still time for character development. George does fall into the trope of the angelic invalid child, too wise for his years, too good for this world, but without his illness, Megs wouldn't likely have the impetus to keep trying to ask Lewis her questions after her first attempt to catch him after a public lecture failed. The ending is drawn out, but it does answer every question the reader might have. Recommended for those interested in the life of C.S. Lewis, and for fans of historical fiction set in post-war Oxford.… (altro)

This is a story that echoes the enchantment of childhood and the magic of our most-loved myths. This is a story about the familiar and foreign places we’ve traveled to in memory and fantasy and nostalgia, those whimsical places that hold brave knights and outwitted witches and rightfully-restored kingdoms. This is a story about stories and the beginnings of stories—about how there is nothing new under the sun, about how all stories come from the same place “‘in the bright light…. The bright lamppost light where all stories begin and end’” (260). Stories, ancient as the dawn of time, are intertwined in our hearts and minds and souls, and these stories—whether real or imagined—have the power to change us and inspire us and lead us to truth. They give us hope, they fill us up, and then they send us back to the real world to deal with a broken world’s realities. In the end, that’s the real power of stories: they open us to the world and to ourselves through the good parts and the bad parts, the hopeful peaks and the scary valleys. Without even trying, stories reveal truths and embed hope and spark joy.

Once Upon a Wardrobe takes the truths of C.S. Lewis’s early life, magically weaving facts into an imagined narrative of Oxford-student Megs and her dying, 8-year-old brother George, in order to highlight a beautiful message of finding joy and hope and the importance of stories. Unknowingly, Megs is the reluctant hero sent on a quest by George to find answers about fantastical Narnia. With her logical, mathematical mind and the urgency of young George’s heart condition, Megs is as desperate to understand and find the answers as she is about curing George’s weak heart. While she wants answers, he just wants stories—and adventure. In the end, it’s the adventure that Megs is brave enough to take that teaches her the most important lesson and the one that helps her through the most unbearable loss.

This story about a girl who finds herself to be a serendipitous storyteller is told in beautiful prose with lovely, lilting language. I really loved the story within the story, the marriage of fact and imagination. It was easy to get as bewitched by Jack and Warnie as George and Megs do, but there were definitely some moments that felt a bit too didactic and thematically redundant. But overall, I was enchanted and moved by this narrative that felt familiar in more ways than one, definitely reminiscent of the film Finding Neverland.… (altro)