The Voyage of the Dawn Treader - C. S. Lewis
The third in Lewis' Narnia series (despite some publishers insisting on labeling it #5), this book has one of my favorite first lines: "There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it." Eustace is a cousin of the Pevensies from the first two books, and he is boy with absolutely no imagination. As the narrator puts it, he "had read none of the right books." So when he finds himself in Narnia with Lucy and Edmund, he makes a beast of himself and doesn't enjoy the magical world at all.
The three children end up on the Dawn Treader, Caspian's ship which is sailing off into the east to search for the seven missing lords and to find the end of the world. Basically it's Lewis' version of the Odyssey, with the explorers encountering all sorts of odd creatures and mysterious lands. It's a little different from the first two in that almost every chapter offers a change of scenery and possibly some different characters, with the exploration offering a good frame story. And of course, Aslan makes a few appearances, lessons are learned, and adventures are had by all.
Fed to jonathan's brain | June 05, 2005
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