The horse and his boy (Chronicles of Narnia)

by C. S. Lewis

Hardcover, 224 pages

English language

Published Aug. 7, 1995 by Scholastic Inc.

ISBN:: 978-0-590-25477-9
Goodreads:: 325473

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(140 reviews)

A boy and a talking horse share an adventurous and dangerous journey to Narnia to warn of invading barbarians.

87 editions

Kevin Smokler reviewed The Horse and His Boy by C. S. Lewis (The Chronicals of Narnia, #3)

Review of 'The Horse and His Boy' on 'Storygraph'

4 stars

If you love the Narnia universe you will almost-love this book. The main character Shasta isn't nearly as compelling as the 4 children of Lion, Witch and the Wardrobe or Prince Caspian himself and C.S. Lewis's plotting, normally straight and true as an arrow wanders \here and doesn't always make sense. He also, about once too many, introduces characters that seem important and the story doesn't do much with. Be that as it may, if you are reading the entire Chronicles of Narnia in one sweep, this might be a rest stop and not a highlight of the trip. But I'm not sad I took it.

ManyRoads reviewed The Horse and His Boy by C. S. Lewis (The Chronicals of Narnia, #3)

Review of 'The Chronicles of Narnia - The Horse and His Boy (The Horse and His Boy, Book 3)' on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

Just another 6-star rating (according to my grandson). Among the most enjoyable and exciting parts were the battle for Archenland and the escape from Tashbaan. Even though it is Halloween season, we will immediately commence with "The Magician's Nephew".

Jill reviewed The Horse and His Boy by C. S. Lewis (The Chronicals of Narnia, #3)

Review of 'The Chronicles of Narnia - The Horse and His Boy (The Horse and His Boy, Book 3)' on 'Goodreads'

2 stars

I used to love these books, but they've started making me sad. C. S. Lewis was not a big fan of women.

Stephen Hayes reviewed The horse and his boy by C. S. Lewis (The Chronicles of Narnia book 3)

None

4 stars

This is my least favourite of the Narnia stories -- not that I dislike it, I just like the other ones more. I'm also not sure why this one is listed as 3 in the "Chronicles of Narnia", I was pretty sure it was number 6, the penultimate one in the series.

Of all the Narnia stories, this one is the most moralistic and didactic, and as far as I can see this can be explained precisely by its being number six (and not number 3) in the series. It is as though Lewis, having fed his readers with enough ontology, telling them the way things are, thinks it's time to tell them about some oughts -- given that life is the way it's described in the preceding five books, now he's saying that, since this is the way things are, now this is is the way one ought to behave. Well, why not? Most of St Pau;'s letters are structured like this; the first half says this is the way things are, and the second half begins with a "therefore" -- therefore you ought to behave like this.

In [b:The Horse and his Boy|84119|The Horse and His Boy (Chronicles of Narnia, #5)|C.S. Lewis|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1661032718l/84119.SX50.jpg|3294501] Aslan intervenes a lot more than he does in the earlier books, micromanaging the characters' lives far more. In the earlier books Aslan appears for big projects - creating a world, saving it, or at least a country in it. There is an occasional individual lesson thrown in, but this book is full of them. Aslan is continually intervening in the lives of people, both human and equine. It's not that the lessons are bad ones (though I do think that some are better than others), it's just that there are so many more of them.

Pride, selfishness, arrogance, thinking you are better than other people are all things that Aslan comes to show people are not acceptable. On the wider canvas, there is quite a bit of anti-imperialism. Calormen is a powerful empire, given to swallowing up or at least dominating smaller countries on its borders. I'm not sure that Lewis's militaristic solutions are the answer, though. Slaughter on the battlefield is OK, as long as a proper "defiance" has been sent. But perhaps that's just me.