Reading Reader's Guides

Justin Taylor reviews A Reader’s Guide Through the Wardrobe and in the process teaches us to read.

Ryken and Mead caution parents against prefacing a reading of LWW to their children with the declaration that Aslan is Jesus. (A delightful quote from Philip Ryken—recalling his own childhood encounter with LWW—enforces the point.) “Such an approach unintentionally fails to allow the narrative to speak in an affective way to the imagination of the child…. It is important to allow children to discover the full meaning of Aslan on their own, even if such understanding does not come until years later. The power of the narrative will only be heightened if one trusts the storyteller and allows the story’s deeper dimensions to unfold naturally.”