The Horse and His Boy: Chapter 1 “How Shasta Set Out on His Travels”
C.S. Lewis Read-Along, Vol. 5, Issue 2
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Chapter 1 “How Shasta Set Out on His Travels”
Background: Despite living as a slave in Calormen all his life, Shasta has an unexplainable longing for the North. Lewis felt that same pang during the time in his life when he left the Christianity of his childhood. Yet even then, God was working through his desires. While Lewis was drawn out of his atheism by what he read, Shasta began his journey North riding Bree, a talking Narnian horse who was also trying to escape slavery.
Quote:
“But he was very interested in everything that lay to the North because no one ever went that way and he was never allowed to go there himself. When he was sitting out of doors mending the nets, and all alone, he would often look eagerly to the North.”
Part of what makes Lewis such a brilliant writer in general and for children specifically is his brevity. He’s able to quickly communicate much of what the reader needs to know in the opening pages of The Horse and His Boy.
