The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe

This large format picture-book, lavishly illustrated in rich colours, has been produced to celebrate C S Lewis's centenary and is, in the publisher's words, intended to 'delight younger children'. The illustrations include soft charcoaly pencil drawings, atmospheric landscapes and larger-than-life double spreads, in full colour, of the main events and characters, evidently derived from photographs and thus realistic rather than impressionistic, and very much in the modern idiom. Adult reaction to this may be that little is left to the imagination compared with Pauline Baynes's stylised vignettes in the original edition. However, my eight-year-old daughter (who has read the original several times) was enchanted by the realism of this new edition. The text has been heavily abridged. Using Lewis's words but altering their context by omitting large amounts in between reduces the text to a bare sequence of events -- no room here for the emotional or spiritual content which is surely the point of the book, nor for Lewis's avuncular, confiding story-telling style. 'It'd be all right for a six-year-old' was my daughter's dismissive comment -- and she had noticed particular omissions that she felt mattered. Of course, that is O.K. -- the book is aimed at younger readers, after all. But is it really O.K.? The spiritual nourishment inherent in Lewis's original resonates particularly with children of nine and over, sophisticated enough to deal with deeper thoughts and less realistic illustration. So why offer it in this watered-down version to younger ones? One might argue that many children will not read it in full anyway, and might as well meet it at six in this abridged form. I am not so sure. Early and inappropriate exposure may put off as many potential readers as it invites.