Book Review: The Horse and His Boy, by C.S. Lewis

This is a children’s book but I wouldn’t read it to my children. While I liked The Magician’s Nephew and The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, this book was not as original as either of those. The plot was plodding and there was a lot of hidden racism/ethnocentrism throughout the novel. For example, the turban-wearing darker skinned desert people to Narnia’s south were always derided as being “slavish” and generally ugly while the fair skinned Northern people were “noble” and “free.” While I could expect the story to be more sympathetic to people of lighter skin color, Lewis’ habit of constantly telling the reader this was annoying.

The main theme of the book is fate and while it was merely okay, it did not really pay off for reading the book. If you are going to read the Chronicles of Narnia, I’d recommend avoiding this book.