by Patti Callahan, narrated by Fiona Hardingham

An Audiobook Review by Jackie Houchin

What a wonderful story!  When a friend recommended this book, I took her up on it but bought the audiobook. I’m so glad I did. (Now I’m eager to read Patti Callahan’s other books.)

ONCE UPON A WARDROBE is the story about a girl who is studying mathematics at Oxford, and her 8-year-old, very sick, little brother. After reading C.S. Lewis’s beautiful allegory, The Lion, the Witch, and The Wardrobe, George asks his sister “Where does Narnia come from?” To answer him, she begins a journey that will change her life and give George an adventure beyond his dreams.

Megs Devonshire approaches Mr. Lewis, who is a professor at her school, with her brother’s question. He is delighted and leads her, story by story (which she writes out and reads to her brother), through the years of his life. It’s not what the logical-thinking Megs wants or expects, but George locks onto them, finding people and places in Narnia from Mr. Lewis’s accounts. He’s captivated by Aslan and begins to draw pictures of the stories Megs reads to him, always with the great Lion somewhere in the scene. He seems to grasp the all-importance of Aslan, way before his sister does.

This is a book that is hard to put down. You know how the story will end, but you want it to go on and on. There is a sweet romance at the end and an Epilogue that is totally fantastic, tying up the story completely.

Read this book! Or as I did, listen to it. Fiona Hardingham does an excellent job of narrating.  (Thank you, Elise M. Stone for recommending this book.)

FIVE+ stars