The Chronicles of Narnia – The Silver Chair

C. S. Lewis's The Silver Chair is a Narnia adventure for 8 year olds that starts with a girl crying behind the school gym.

What happens

Jill Pole is being bullied at Experiment House, a school where the bullies never seem to get into trouble. Eustace Scrubb finds her there and trusts her with a secret. Last holidays, he went to another world where animals talk.

They try calling to Aslan to let them in. When the bullies come after them, they run for a door in the school wall that's nearly always locked. It opens. On the other side is a bright, silent mountain top in a completely different world.

Then it goes wrong very fast. Jill shows off at the edge of an enormous cliff, Eustace tries to pull her back and it's Eustace who falls. A huge lion blows him away to safety. It's a heart-in-your-mouth moment, but it's settled within moments.

Jill is left alone with the lion, and she's desperately thirsty. The only stream is right beside him. Do you drink, or do you run? It's a scene that stays with you.

Aslan gives her a task. The old king of Narnia's only son was stolen years ago, and she and Eustace must find him. He gives her four signs to guide them and makes her repeat them until she's word perfect. Of course, they muddle the very first sign (and Jill knows it's partly her fault).

Jill is brilliant to read. She's cross, proud and quick to blame everyone else. She's also honest when it matters, and you really feel for her. Her squabbles with Eustace are funny too. They call each other Pole and Scrubb, and he has a habit of talking as if he's giving a lecture.

Narnia has some wonderful characters waiting. There's a very deaf old dwarf with an ear-trumpet, an owl who isn't quite himself until the sun goes down and a whole castle full of feasting.

A few things are good to know. The bullying at school is real and upsetting for Jill, the cliff fall is frightening for a moment and there's the odd old-fashioned remark (Eustace declares that girls never know the points of the compass). If your reader is fine with a bit of peril, this is a proper quest with a mystery at its heart.

What to read next

Eustace has been to Narnia before, with his cousins Edmund and Lucy. If your reader wants to go back to that trip, it's The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, which begins with a painting of a ship on a bedroom wall.