My Favorite Books: Voyage of the Dawn Treader

Hi all! Since this week's Did You Know... featured C.S. Lewis, I figured I would talk a little about a book that he wrote. As I've mentioned many times before on this blog I am a big fan of Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia series. A while back, I wrote about the first book in the series, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. I thought I'd share a little bit about the third book in the series, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.

I first had this book read to me by my mother when I was about 12 or so. Mom used to read a couple of chapters every night after dinner while my four brothers and sisters and I were still seated at the table. She started with the first book and wound up reading through the first four or five books before I decided to read the rest on my own because she was going too slowly!

I've always had a soft spot in my heart for this book. In Voyage of the Dawn Treader only the two youngest Pevensie children, Edmund and Lucy, return to Narnia. The are accompanied, unwillingly, by their cousin, Eustace Scrubb. Eustace is a real pill. Anyway, they land in the ocean and are picked up by King Caspian and hauled aboard his ship, the Dawn Treader. Caspian is on a journey to the Lone Islands and beyond to find the seven banished lords of Narnia. Along the way, they have many wonderful adventures.

As a youngster, this book really captured my imagination. I loved all of the interesting places they went and the things they did. The island of the Dufflepuds was both funny and suspenseful. The chilling waters of Death Island were fascinating, and their encounter with a dragon was unique to say the least. I also liked Eustace's journey from insufferable lout to a really nice guy.

As I said before, this book left an impression on me. In fact, I can see some similarities in the third book in my Deliverers series, The Golden Dragon of Ang. Now, the themes in my book differ from those in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, but as I reread the book after writing it, I could see influences of Lewis' book sprinkled subtly throughout. For instance, the Deliverers travel across an island chain, the Dragon Islands. It contains a mysterious rhyme (Reepicheep the recited a rhyme that was said over him when he was little), they travel from island to island and have adventures. There is even talk of a dragon.

Do you have any thoughts about Voyage of the Dawn Treader or any of the books in the Chronicles of Narnia series? If so, I'd love to hear about them!