Gift Guide for C.S. Lewis and Narnia Readers
Prices range from $4 to $30
Don’t be like Edmund and miss out on a gift from Father Christmas. If you are looking for a gift for the C.S. Lewis reader or Narnia fan in your life, here are some holiday gift suggestions. The ideas are divided into five different groups:
Books for younger readers — Children through teens (though some of us older readers may also appreciate a few of the gifts)
Books about C.S. Lewis — Something to read to learn more about Lewis
Books by C.S. Lewis — Some books that many Lewis readers may not have
Books that inspired C.S. Lewis — Four of the books that Lewis said were most influential in his thinking
Beyond books — Gift ideas that aren’t limited to pages to read
The prices of these gifts range from $4 to $30.1
If you’ve bought a gift enjoyed by a C.S. Lewis reader or Narnia fan, including yourself, share that so the rest of us check it out as well.
Unfortunately, the full list may be cut off for those who receive it in your email inbox. If that’s the case, click to read it on the web or through the Substack app.
Books for younger readers
The Chronicles of Narnia Official Coloring Book
The coloring book has maps and pictures from original illustrator Pauline Baynes, as well as quotes and other pages that allow the artistic Narnia fan to enter the Lewis’ fantasy world.
Price: $11.70 (currently 38% off)
I’ve bought this for my kids. It pulls out some of the faith symbolism from the book and works as a devotional for children around ages 7-11.
Price: $9.79 (currently 35% off)
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe Board Book
If you want to help children fall in love with Narnia from the earliest age, try this abridged board book.
Price: $7.79 (currently 22% off)
Finding Narnia: The Story of C. S. Lewis and His Brother
Narnia didn’t come from nowhere. Much of it began with the books C.S. Lewis and his brother read as children, the make-believe games they played together, and the fictional worlds they created.
Price: $15.63 (currently 29% off)
Books about C.S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis A Life: Eccentric Genius, Reluctant Prophet
I always come back to this biography. McGrath knows Lewis both as a researcher and as a former atheist turned Christian professor at Oxford. This is the modern biography of Lewis to own.
Price: $27.88
A Year with Aslan: Daily Reflections from The Chronicles of Narnia
Complete with Pauline Baynes' illustrations, this book features 365 quotes from the Narnia books, as well as questions drawn from the quote for reflection each day.
Price: $16.09 (currently 40% off)
This is the go-to encyclopedia for the Narnia series. Ford has done so much work compiling both background and in-story information.
Price: $11.89 (currently 34% off)
The Mythmakers: The Remarkable Fellowship of C.S. Lewis & J.R.R. Tolkien
This is on my Christmas wish list. The book has been recommended by so many people I know, both Christian and non-Christian. I’m looking forward to finally having this on my nightstand.
Price: $29.22
Books by C.S. Lewis
Somehow astonishingly prophetic for our day and timelessly true for every day, The Abolition of Man is Lewis at his best as a cultural thinker.
Price: $16.65 (currently 25% off)
I don’t think I recommend a Lewis book more than God in the Dock. This is a great collection of Lewis’ essays across a host of topics.
Price: $17.72 (currently 11% off)
Till We Have Faces: A Myth Retold
A hauntingly beautiful story that rewards multiple readings, Till We Have Faces showcases Lewis’ storytelling ability and skill at using pagan mythology to communicate Christian truths.
Price: $9.71 (currently 43% off)
The three books that give us Ransom’s space and spiritual journey provide Lewis with a means to write science fiction for adults. Most have read Narnia and The Screwtape Letters, but these books deserve a wider audience.
Price: $19.63
Books that inspired C.S. Lewis
Phantastes: A Faerie Romance for Men and Women
This is the book that Lewis said baptized his imagination, preparing him to respond to the gospel later.
Price: $13.99 (currently 30% off)
Lewis called G.K. Chesterton’s classic “the best popular apologetic I know.” If you’d like to expand your Chesterton reading, my friend Trevin Wax also has an annotated, guided reading version of Orthodoxy.
Price: $27.85 (currently 7% off)
Lewis directly credits Rudolf Otto’s work when discussing the concept of numinous, a term Otto coined. It’s the type of feeling Lewis seeks to elicit when discussing Aslan as being good but not safe. Thirty years after reading The Idea of Holy, Lewis said he was deeply influenced by it.
Price: $9.50 (currently 17% off)
Williams was a fellow Inkling with Lewis. This 1937 novel is described as a “theological thriller” in which a town puts on a play and confronts their sins. The plot resembles pieces of Lewis’ The Great Divorce.
Price: $10.95
Beyond books
The 1993 film is based on the love story of Lewis (Anthony Hopkins) and Joy Gresham (Debra Winger). Also, if you’d like to watch a Narnia adaptation, besides the early 2000s versions and before the upcoming Greta Gerwig version, the BBC versions are available.
Price: $18.94
If you’re a sticker person, here’s one that looks cool (just not for a non-tea drinker like me). “You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me.” If you want more stickers, you can also grab a bag full of Narnia stickers.
Price: $3.99
Cerez Pazari Turkish Delight Candy Gift Basket
Every Narnia fan has to try Turkish Delight at least once. If you’re like me, you probably won’t enjoy it, but it will give you a better understanding of Edmund’s betrayal.
Price: $11.19
From the Bodleian Library at Oxford, you can get this ornament featuring Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Caroll, Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte, The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien, Great Expectations by Charles Dickens, Pride & Prejudice by Jane Austen, Little Women by Louisa May Alcott and The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis. Bodleian also has illustrated maps of Tolkien’s Middle-earth and a host of other Tolkien-related items.
Price: $12.53 (converted from £10.00)
Most of these books are more popular level, but if you want a collection of even nerdier books mostly connected to Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien, this is the list I put together for my wife when she’s looking for a gift for me.
These are the prices at the moment I compiled the list. They may have changed.
I stumbled upon that "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe Board Book" in a local bookshop and my 4yo and 2yo both love it: they have a little stuffed animal lion that they've renamed Aslan :)
The art is wonderful and the actual physical board book is great quality. It *does* leave a lot of details out of the actual story and is even almost too simple a telling for young children IMO, but I just fill extra details in whenever I read it.