It is interesting to hear how others were introduced to Narnia! 🙂

My first introduction to the series was when I was very young. Me and my siblings owned the bumper video of the BBC's LWW. We were very fond of it, and then it seemed to go missing at some point. That was very sad for me; I was so nostalgic for it - and when I saw the series was available on DVD years later, I was so pleased. ? We also had the LWW book in the house (with BBC cover), as well as Prince Caspian, but it was a few years later as an older child that I read each. Then a bit after that I got more serious about reading more of the stories!

I was introduced to Narnia when I was little, my siblings and I watched the movies so many times, many times a year. We loved the characters in the movies. My eldest sibling had already read the books before so last year in 2020 she decided to read us all  the books in the chronicles of Narnia with the rest of my siblings who had not read it either .  I immediately loved the characters and the story, while we read it when we were stuck at home. I am extremely grateful that I was introduced to Narnia and how it impacted my life. 

 I’ve been familiar with Narnia for as long as I can remember! My parents introduced me to the movies when I was really little. I remember checking my parent’s wardrobe to see if it led to Narnia! (It’s always worth a try, right?! )

During the fall I was scrolling through Disney+ and decided to watch Prince Caspian. It had been years since I had seen it, and I didn’t remember it too well. Once I watched it, I instantly became hooked on the Narnia series again. I rewatched all of the movies, and decided to read The Voyage of the Dawn Treader book since I knew I had it. I bought all of the old Puffin books, and finished the series last month. I hope to read them again soon! These books are so special to me, and I’m grateful that I found this community.  

Aww, well we're grateful to have you here, Grace!  Narnia is one of those series that, no matter how many times you leave and come back to it. . . it's always just as special as it always was.

Many eons ago, when I was in Grade One or Two, I was at my grandparents' house and I remember turning on the TV and the BBC LWW was on and it was right at the part where Lucy was entering the wardrobe and seeing the world inside.  I was instantly enthralled.  I remember thinking, "This is exactly the kind of story I've been waiting for my entire life!"  I found the scary parts on the very limits of what I could handle and it drove me nuts that I had to wait another week to see how the next part would go.  My grandparents noticed how much I was enjoying it so they got me "Prince Caspian", "Voyage of the Dawn Treader" and "The Silver Chair" for Christmas.  They were the editions that came with photos from the movies.  Though I never saw the BBC movies for those books until I was a young adult.  So I read the books completely out of order but I was hooked.  I read them many, many times.  Then I went through the phase where I was "too old and mature" for Narnia and then thankfully, reached the age where I could enjoy it again.

Around 1966–I would have been seven or eight—my mother sat me in a chair while she was washing dishes and asked me to read aloud to her this library book entitled “The Magician’s Nephew”. Over the next week or so this went on until the book was finished. This was a completely isolated incident in our lives: my Mom wasn’t really a reader of fiction and neither was I (she was a single mother of seven children so she had an excuse). It was a couple years before I became familiar with the rest of the Chronicles and they became a lifelong companion. 

I never found out what was behind that serendipitous moment in my life. Although I was always reading, it was usually encyclopedias or some other nonfiction. I wonder if my mother was concerned about my Eustace Scrubb-esque taste in reading material (that hasn’t changed much; I still read far more  nonfiction). My mom certainly has never been a “friend of Narnia”, and scarcely recalled this incident when I have asked her about it. 

I was first introduced to Narnia when I was ten in 2003, so around the same era when the Walden movie series adaption was announced. While I read The Magician's Nephew first, I was aware it wasn't published that way.