In most places I've lived, we had built-in wardrobes, and it was only recently that I learned that US uses two different words for the freestanding and built-in ones.

At 10 I would have loved Narnia. Unfortunately I was about 13 when a school friend pointed out LWW in the library, and said it was good.  I tried, but it was too young for me. 

@coracle 

I would suggest that children start to read the Narnia books at about eight or ten years of age. But reading them at age thirteen is not a bad idea since many teenagers should like them. They will appeal just as much to older children’s imagination. And when they are college age they may love them enough to return to them. 🙂

Posted by: @narnian78

@coracle 

I would suggest that children start to read the Narnia books at about eight or ten years of age. But reading them at age thirteen is not a bad idea since many teenagers should like them. They will appeal just as much to older children’s imagination. And when they are college age they may love them enough to return to them. 🙂

Well... for many of us, there's a point in our teens — for me it was about age 12 or 13 — where we go off "childish" things (or things that we think are childish) and start trying very hard to be grown-up. It doesn't happen to everyone, and it didn't happen to me fully — because I didn't want to be a little kid any more, but didn't want to grow up either (and still don't ) — but it's pretty common. I think quite a lot of teenagers would feel the same as @coracle, that these books are "too young" and there's just not enough in them to interest an adolescent. (And to be caught reading them, well, that would be seriously uncool. )

But most people do grow out of that phase, as Lewis himself did and readily admitted it. Just as he says to his god-daughter Lucy Barfield in the dedication of LWW, "some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again." That definitely happened to me too.  

And now as we are seriously off topic again, I'll shut up!!

@courtenay 

I would hope that people would return to reading fairy tales as adults. And at least some of that is from a desire that the fantasy becomes a real place for them. Today that is more common because adults like Narnia and The Lord of the Rings. I think a fair number of teenagers like the stories too. They are now often considered “cool books” for any age since fantasy is very popular. 🙂

Narnia should be introduced to children before they hit that 'growing up' age, so that they won't have lost the sense of wonder and wishing it could be real. 

In the early years of Narniaweb, we had quite a few teens and even a few slightly younger. There was still a sense of wishing or hoping it might be real, among our younger ones - or they remembered that feeling.

Did you ever dream about Narnia? I remember that I did that many years ago after reading the books.  I dreamed that I was in a beautiful place which I thought was Narnia since it had many lakes and trees and beautiful music was playing. But I don’t remember that any characters from the books were there except maybe Aslan since he created the place. It was a place in a beautiful natural setting, which is how most people picture Narnia.  I guess the place wasn’t real, but I was very sorry to wake up. 🙂