The Chronicles of Narnia – The Horse and His Boy

C. S. Lewis's The Horse and His Boy is a runaway adventure for 8 year olds about a fisherman's boy and the talking warhorse who escapes with him.

What happens

Shasta has grown up in a hut by the sea with Arsheesh, a fisherman who works him hard and sometimes beats him. He's always wondered what lies north, over the hill he's never allowed to climb.

One night a great lord stops for dinner and offers to buy Shasta as a slave. Listening at the wall, Shasta learns that Arsheesh isn't his father at all. He was found as a baby in a little boat. Then the lord's horse speaks to him.

Bree was stolen from Narnia as a foal and has spent years pretending to be an ordinary horse. His advice is blunt. Don't go with that man. Run away with me instead.

So off they go, heading north. Bree teaches Shasta to ride, which mostly means teaching him to fall off without crying. Then, chased by lions in the moonlight, they end up side by side with a girl called Aravis and her talking mare, Hwin. The two children can't stand each other at first. The two horses get on brilliantly (they turn out to be distant cousins). All four have to get past the huge city of Tashbaan.

Bree is the star. He's grand, brave and quite vain, and he secretly worries whether real talking horses ever roll on their backs in the grass. The narrator chats to you too, stepping in to explain how a boy might feel about being sold, or why storytelling is taught in Calormen.

Worth knowing before you hand it over

Aravis is running from a forced marriage to a man of at least sixty, and she tells how she nearly killed herself with a dagger before her mare spoke up. It's told as her own story, not shown as it happens, but it's a heavy moment for a young reader. The book also describes the people of Calormen, the southern land where Shasta grew up, largely by their dark skin, and in old-fashioned ways that can sound unkind now. A sensitive reader might want to talk those parts through with you. If your reader loves animals with big personalities and a proper journey, there's so much here to enjoy.

What to read next

If this is their first trip to Narnia, go back to The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, where Lucy pushes past a row of fur coats and finds herself standing in a snowy wood at night.