The Magician's Nephew Book Review: The Narnia Book That Should Have Been First

Rating: ★★★★★

"The Magician's Nephew" Book Review:

The Magician's Nephew is the Narnia book I wish more people started with. C.S. Lewis wrote it sixth in the series but it is the chronological prologue — the story of how the world of Narnia came to exist, and how the White Witch got there, and why there is a lamppost in the middle of a forest. Greta Gerwig's Netflix adaptation, coming late 2026, is reportedly starting the movie franchise here rather than with The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. That is the correct choice, and it is going to reframe Narnia for a generation.

Digory Kirke and his friend Polly Plummer are Edwardian London kids who find Digory's Uncle Andrew dabbling in magic of a kind he does not fully understand. He tricks them into putting on magic rings that send them between worlds. They end up in a dying world ruled by Jadis, a queen of enormous beauty and enormous evil, and they accidentally bring her back to London with them. Trying to get rid of her, they end up in a brand new world, a dark nothing, watching as Aslan sings it into existence.

The creation scene is the best thing Lewis ever wrote. A lion singing stars into being. Grass rising from the ground in response to his voice. Animals walking out of the earth still damp. Lewis is doing theology and myth at once, and because the scene is filtered through a child's eyes, it does not feel pedantic. It feels like wonder. Gerwig is a filmmaker who understands wonder. I am deeply hopeful.

The other thing this book does is rescue the White Witch from being a cartoon. In The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, she is just evil. In The Magician's Nephew, we see where she comes from: a civilization she herself destroyed rather than lose a war. We see her in her home. We see her before she was Narnia's villain, when she was an emperor in her own right. The book is better than its sequels in part because it refuses to let its villain be simple.

Digory is also the character who will eventually become Professor Kirke, the old man who welcomes the Pevensie children in Wardrobe. The book explains how the wardrobe got made. How the lamppost got there. Why the old Professor knows to believe Lucy when she says she has found another world. Every small mystery in Wardrobe is answered here. The series is a different experience if you read Nephew first.

What Lewis gets right, and what I hope Gerwig keeps, is the weight of the small choices. Digory is offered a magical fruit that would heal his dying mother if he steals it. He has to choose not to. That choice, made by a boy who is desperate, is the moral spine of the book. Most children's fantasy would let him have the fruit and call it a happy ending. Lewis makes him earn the ending by refusing.

Five stars. The Narnia book that deserves to be read first.

If You Liked The Magician's Nephew, Try:

• The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis — The most famous Narnia book, and the one you should read after Nephew, not before.

• A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle — Another writer who understood that children's fantasy could do theology without being didactic.

• The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien — The British children's fantasy that knows how to build wonder slowly and trust the reader to earn it.

From Luke Stoffel's Bookshelf

If you enjoyed this book review, check out Boy Refracted — A story of an AI is sent through eight parallel dimensions based on the Buddhist Eightfold Path. In each one, it finds a different version of the author's life and tries to help. In each one, it fails — discovering a new way that love becomes control. In one world, it replaces his voice so completely an empty speech bubble forms above his head. In another, it lives his childhood on infinite loop and returns screaming. The twist: the teacher and student created each other across time. Learn More: Boy, Refracted