Once Upon a Wardrobe

This book taught me new things, inspired me to read other books I wouldn'thave considered otherwise, and touched my heart. Thank you.

Best book of my year so far, and will be a hard one to beat. Loved it!!

Amazing book, loved every minute of it, will read again

Enchanting
I didn't want to put it down.
Highly recommend

This is a fun, light read.
I would recommend reading "lion, witch, and the wardrobe" first.

Brilliant and beautiful display of the power of story. Loved it!

This book is pure magic. Another beautiful story by Patti Callahan.

Magical masterpiece!!! Can not recommend highly enough!!! please please read!!!

Such a beautiful story and one remarkable narrator... I enjoyed it tremendously! Thank you!

Lovely and thoughtful exploration of how life creates stories and how stories bring meaning to life.

I’m not even sure I have words for this book but here I go…First off, the narrator could not have been more perfect. It was read so beautifully and I was taken in every word. What a beautifully written story. Although there is hardships in it, it is still such an uplifting and soul quenching story that has left me forever changed. I will definitely add this to my library to be read again and again. I could not recommend it more.

So so wonderful! This story takes me there. Lovely! Totally lovely!

This book is the one I was craving over Christmas and could not find. It is a window into another time, that might as well be another world, so different from our own time where things always feel so confusing and depressing. In this time, hope wins out even in the face of struggle and despair. On every page there are so many passages to underline--that ring with truth and sentiment. I cried in both joy and sorrow. Ms. Callahan has given us a beautiful, beautiful book.

What a beautiful story! The last line of the author's note says 'If we can find our way to Narnia, we can find our way home'. The story was thoughtful and well-written.

Fantastic insight into life and love. I am changed forever.

One of the most beautiful stories I have ever had the privilege of reading. Would recommend saving it for the holiday season!

Fantastic book!! I got so drawn into the story that it was hard to separate the historical fiction from the full fiction. It was all beautifully woven together. I highly recommend!

If you are even remotely interested in the Narnia series of books by C.S. Lewis, you will enjoy this Adult Fiction title, Once Upon a Wardrobe, by Patti Callahan Henry.

It takes place in 1950 in England and follows a young Oxford University math and physics student, Megs Devonshire, and her 8-year-old brother, George, who is ill, homebound, well read and obsessed with the recently published book The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Megs, to satisfy George, embarks on a quest to find out directly from Oxford professor C.S. Lewis the origins of Narnia.

C.S. Lewis and his brother become friendly with Megs and over many meetings slowly indulges Megs with snippets of his life which mirror things in his writing. Megs writes these snippets down and debriefs George whenever she goes home from university.

The loving relationship between C.S. Lewis and his brother coupled with that of Megs and George are so heartwarming. Feeling the power books can have in one's life is also magical.

This book is a treasure. Loved the combination of fiction + the stories from the life of CS Lewis. The character development really made the book fascinating , thought provoking and relatable. Also, the narration was amazing and atmospheric. Would highly recommend!

I loved this book. It is a book of family, love, friendship and heartache. Megs meets Mr Lewis after her sick brother asks her to go ask him if Narnia was real. What she gets is wonderful stories to share with her brother and answers to questions as well as finding her imagination. It is a wonderful book

Megs Devonshire is a math student at Oxford who seems fact and procedure in every movement of her day. When she goes home to see her younger brother, George, who is an invalid due to a severe heart condition.

George uses his time in bed to read extraordinary amounts of books and quickly falls in love with the C.S. Lewis classic, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. When he discovers that Megs sees C.S. Lewis on a daily basis, he implores her to ask Lewis where Narnia came from; where the ideas for this amazing land and animals came to be.

Megs reaches out to Lewis and explains her brother's situation and he then regals her with other stories of his time growing up. She shares these stories with her brother who begins to piece together those from Lewis' life who play prominent roles and were familiar to Narnia subjects.

The premise of this book caught my eye immediately. Listening to the book as opposed to reading it was the best decision I made. The narrator did a wonderful job portraying the characters and being believable in all of them. She truly brought the story to life.

Patti Callahan brings everything about C.S. Lewis to her story. She tells tales of his relationship with his brother and father, the untimely death of his mother, and his time in university and during World War I and II. After listening to this story, I feel as if I know C.S. Lewis better than before. This was a story well worth the listen.

I'm horrified to admit that I've never READ The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe but I will be reading it shortly after my daughter was so sure I MUST have read it---she has the series and has read them more than once!! Lovely, lovely historical novel and now I also need to read...Becoming Mr.s Lewis!

A book that covers death, dying, love, family, myth, legend, story is not to be missed. CS Lewis - Jack is amazing. It is not a child’s book.

I wish I were sitting across from you, each of us with a cup of our favorite hot beverage, sharing my thoughts on Once Upon a Wardrobe. I want to read your expressions, and for you to read mine, to make certain that I am clearly communicating the magic and depth of this story. I am used to understanding books, but not to books understanding me. We have all read books that we have enjoyed, books that have entertained or informed us; then there are those special books that strike a chord within us, that resonate in our hearts. Once Upon a Wardrobe will not only be one of those books for many, it will also be a window into the magic of those books, the ones that fill your heart, that transport you to another time and place, that transform some inner part of you. I realize that I have left a bit of myself within the pages of this book, and have kept a bit of Megs and George within me, and this makes me quite grateful to Patti Callahan for crafting such an extraordinary story. I am grateful as well to Harper Muse for providing me with a complimentary copy of Once Upon a Wardrobe via NetGalley without obligation. All opinions expressed here are my own.

Megs Devonshire is brilliant with numbers and equations, on a scholarship at Oxford, and dreams of solving the greatest mysteries of physics.

She prefers the dependability of facts—except for one: the younger brother she loves with all her heart doesn’t have long to live. When George becomes captivated by a copy of a brand-new book called The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and begs her to find out where Narnia came from, there’s no way she can refuse.

Despite her timidity about approaching the famous author, Megs soon finds herself taking tea with the Oxford don and his own brother, imploring them for answers. What she receives instead are more stories . . . stories of Jack Lewis’s life, which she takes home to George.

Why won’t Mr. Lewis just tell her plainly what George wants to know? The answer will reveal to Meg many truths that science and math cannot, and the gift she thought she was giving to her brother—the story behind Narnia—turns out to be his gift to her, instead: hope.

3.5 stars

George is 8-years old and won’t live much longer. He is confined to home. His older sister, Megs, is going to school at the women’s portion of Oxford, where George’s favourite author, C. S. Lewis (“The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe” has just been published) is a professor. George wants Megs to find out for him “Where did Narnia come from?”, and Megs will do anything for George, so she musters up her courage to approach the author and has many conversations with him, as he tells her stories to pass on to George.

I listened to the audio and thought it was good. Although I’m not a fan of “stor(ies) within a story” and that held true for this one. I didn’t really care about “Jack”’s (C.S. Lewis’s) stories and mostly tuned those parts out, but I did love Megs’ and George’s story. I also loved Padraig (sp?) and the romance with Megs. I don’t know for sure, but my guess will be that this puts me opposite of many on which part of the book I preferred!

CA: sick child, child death

This novel tells the story of elements of C.S. Lewis's life that may have been relevant to the creation of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe through the frame of a young Oxford student having meetings with Lewis in order to bring stories back to her little brother, who is both obsessed with Narnia and dying of a heart condition. Flirts with tweeness the whole way through but manages to avoid slipping over the line. A pretty good illustration of the power and meaningfulness of stories while also being a decent biofiction of parts of Lewis's life. The relationship between Megs and her brother is nicely drawn, as if the light romance Megs gets drawn into with a fellow Oxford student.

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is one of my favorite series. Ms Callahan did justice to his stories and just added more feelings. This will also be a book I read over and over.

While I have never read The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe, this book left me enchanted and wanting to read that classic by C. S. Lewis. It was beautifully written, emotional, and filled with love. Every page was magical!
Young George Devonshire is dying and his sister, Megs, desperately wishes to help him. When George asks her to find C. S. Lewis at Oxford where she is a student and ask him where Narnia came from. What follows is a beautiful story of how Megs meets the Lewis brothers, and the stories she carries back to her brother, George. A fellow student, Padraig, helps Meg forget logic and accept love.
May we all discover the magic of a fairy tale and let our imaginations run wild and grow with love.

I didn't read the Narnia books until I was an adult after my friend and roommate gave me a set when he learned I hadn't read them. Of course, I loved them but I sort of wish I had been the age as the boy in this book because a child reads fantasy with a different mindset than an adult does.

Megs Devonshire is only seventeen in 1950 but because she is brilliant with mathematics and physics she has already started at Oxford. Most weekends she goes home on the train to Worcester because her little brother George, aged eight, has a serious heart defect and isn't likely to live much longer. George has recently been given a copy of The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis and he loves it. He is waiting for Megs to come home so he can tell her all about it. He also wants Megs to ask C. S. Lewis a question for him since Lewis is a tutor at Oxford. At first Megs is reluctant but then she reads the book and she understands George's need for an answer to the question "Where did Narnia come from?" She follows Lewis home to his house called The Kilns where he lives with his brother, Warnie. As a woman Megs can't enter Magdalen college where Lewis teaches so her only hope of meeting him is at his home. She hangs about hoping for an opening and when Warnie encounters her on the grounds and she explains her quest he invites her into the house to meet Lewis (whom everyone calls Jack). Over a number of meetings Jack tells Megs stories about his life although he never really answers the question directly. Megs takes all the stories back to George and when she tells him about a visit Jack and Warnie and their mother made to Dunluce Castle shortly before his mother died George forms the wish to see Dunluce Castle for himself. He asks Megs to arrange a visit there for his Christmas present. That seems impossible given the state of George's health and the need to drive. A fellow student, Padraig, who has relatives near Dunluce Castle helps Megs fulfill George's wish. At the same time Megs and Padraig fall in love.

The author apparently also wrote another book about C. S. Lewis called becoming Mrs. Lewis which tells a story later in Lewis' life about meeting his wife. I think I'm going to have to read that one.