The Voyage of the Dawn Treader

The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C.S. Lewis was my favourite Narnia book as a child – an exciting ocean journey discovering new lands in a quest to find seven missing lords of Narnia. It again features King Caspian and Reepicheep from the previous book, as well as Edmund and Lucy Pevensie. It introduces a new character from our world, their obnoxious, ‘modernly-educated’ cousin named Eustace Scrubb (and, Lewis tells us, “he almost deserved it”). The journey is driven by the quest for the missing lords but the story is about the regeneration of Eustace, with comments about sin, spiritual blindness, regeneration and sanctification. I recently re-read this out loud in an evening as part of an end-of-year storytime marathon and appreciated these spiritual themes in a whole new way following a doctrine exam on similar topics! It made me enjoy this book the most I have since childhood.