A Year with Aslan: Daily Reflections from The Chronicles of Narnia

by C.S. Lewis

The Chronicles of Narnia have long been mainstays of children's literature, but when reread as an adult, can deliver an entirely new experience. In the midst of these stories about adventures in a magical land are profound spiritual and ethical messages.

A Year with Aslan will select the most thought-provoking and poignant passages from all seven books in the series, and provide reflective questions that get the heart of what matters most.

Genres: Fantasy, Christian, Devotional, Fiction, Christian Fiction, Classics, Philosophy

484 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 1, 2010

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

Clive Staples Lewis was one of the intellectual giants of the twentieth century and arguably one of the most influential writers of his day. He was a Fellow and Tutor in English Literature at Oxford University until 1954. He was unanimously elected to the Chair of Medieval and Renaissance Literature at Cambridge University, a position he held until his retirement. He wrote more than thirty books, allowing him to reach a vast audience, and his works continue to attract thousands of new readers every year. His most distinguished and popular accomplishments include Mere Christianity, Out of the Silent Planet, The Great Divorce, The Screwtape Letters, and the universally acknowledged classics The Chronicles of Narnia. To date, the Narnia books have sold over 100 million copies and been transformed into three major motion pictures.

Lewis was married to poet Joy Davidman.
W.H. Lewis was his elder brother]

Reviews

[Coralie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Man, either Goodreads is eating my reviews or I just dreamed that I reviewed a few of these books but didn't actually post them.

Anywho, I picked this up in a used bookstore and the timing was really perfect since I spent the last year buddy reading through The Chronicles of Narnia with two friends. Each snippet from the classic stories was accompanied by one or two reflection questions. The questions were kind of hit or miss for me, but there were plenty of good ones, too.

The collection of snippets weren't in what appeared to be any order, and I must say I liked the variety they pulled from. I liked how they were interspersed, mixing snippets from different books throughout the months. I also really liked how each month was divided by an illustration from one of the books.

Overall, a fun little 365 devotional. Not my favorite one on the planet, but Lewis's work is well worth it, regardless of the reflection questions. <3

[Ellen · Rating 1 out of 5]

A long-time lover of the Narnia books, I rushed out to pre-order this one for my Kindle for 50% off the list price... sadly, I don't think it was worth even the price I paid. Presumably, this book was supposed to bring classic passages from all 7 books into a new light by making applications akin to devotionals. What a waste. The quotes from the books are good, but the applications are minimal, two or three questions at best, not very deep, nor enlightening. I'd get more out of just re-reading the series again or picking up some of C.S. Lewis' other works. Definitely not worth the money. This book would be better as a purpetual calendar instead.

[Dean · Rating 5 out of 5]

Recommendable for every one who keeps the mind and heart open.
Every day a devotional with insight, wit and humour. I'm sure that you will be often be surprised and astonished.
I 'll give 5 stars !!!
I've discovered quite lately the books by C. S. Lewis, but since "mere Christianity" and the complete chronicles of Narnia, I'm a big fan.
And, if you love C. S. Lewis books, then don't hesitate to get a copy!!
My experience with this devotional is comparable with the freshness and novelty of a clear spring morning day, after you have had a long sleep in a stuffy and stale bedroom....
Dean:)

[Jenna Leigh · Rating 2 out of 5]

Here's the deal with this book: I was really excited to get it, because I'd been wanting to get a good daily devotional for awhile, and this book was advertised in such a way that I thought it would be that. I'd gotten so much out of the Chronicles of Narnia series when I'd read it, and I even read a couple of reviews saying that it was good as a devotional. It may be that for some people, but not for me.

Every entry basically contains a small excerpt from one of the Chronicles of Narnia books, ended with a few "thoughts" about the moral of the story you have just read. It's not just about Aslan, as other people have already said, and I knew that going in, so that wasn't the problem. The questions posed at the end of every story, for the most part, just aren't very deep, although there are a few exceptions. They aren't applicable to everyday life. Where I could see this book being a good devotional or daily meditation is with kids. Otherwise, you're just reading snippets of the Chronicles of Narnia and I'd prefer to just read the series again, if that's all it is.

Here's an example of an entry - I chose this one because of its brevity (most are longer than this), but the questions asked at the end are representative of the "thoughts" presented throughout the book:

"MAY 3

The Beautiful Terror

He turned and saw, pacing beside him, taller than the horse, a Lion. The horse did not seem to be afraid of it or else could not see it. It was from the Lion that the light came. No one ever saw anything more terrible or beautiful. -The Horse and His Boy

How can something be both terrible and beautiful? Can you think of anything in our world that might warrant such a description?"

It's not that there's not a place for a book like this - as I said before, maybe it would be a nice, light family devotional for someone with young kids. It's just not deep enough for me, and I'm going to have to find a new devotional that fits what I'm looking for.

[Becky · Rating 3 out of 5]

It consists of selections from the Narnia books with a little "thought" question at the end. Most of the questions are ok but some are inane or obvious. I checked the book out of the library thinking it would be more "devotional" than it was. It very carefully did not reference religion at all, which I found disappointing, given the allegorical nature of the series. My husband made the comment that it's an easy way to publish a book -- borrow from someone else and give little "thought questions" at the end. We have a devotional that has excerpts from Lewis' other books, with no thought questions, yet I value it more highly. Not sure why that is. But it was a nice read through and mini-review of the Narnia series, always one of my favorites.

[Debbie Phillips · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed reading this devotional this year. Reading it and needing one book for the Ultimate Popsugar Reading Challenge made me decide to read the whole Chronicles of Narnia series (except for The Last Battle, which I plan to read early in 2021.

I have to admit that I did not read the book daily. Many times I had to read multiple passages to try and catch up.... but I did finish reading it on December 31st... so that is something.

The devotional has a section of the book and then a question or two about that section. The books rotate so you get a quote from each book each week. The questions are thought provoking and would make a great discussion in a family as well as just for you to think about or even write your answer to.

I highly recommend both this book and the complete series of the Chronicles of Narnia.


Ultimate Popsugar Reading Challenge prompt(s) –
#20 - A book you picked because the title caught your attention

[Mwrogers · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book contains a small excerpt from one of the Chronicles of Narnia books followed by a question or two. It is designed to be read on a daily basis throughout the year.

I sometimes wondered if the writer of the questions knew who Aslan is…..thus the 4 star rating instead of my usual 5 stars for anything associated with CS Lewis. Sometimes, instead of a “daily reflection”, I was left saying “duh!”

But anytime spent in Narnia is always time well spent. And now….as the clock ticks toward 2024, I close this book and my “year with Aslan” and head back to The Shadowlands.

[Chrystal · Rating 5 out of 5]

Supposed to last all year, but I had to keep reading. So many good passages to choose from.

[Amie · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a life-long Lewis fan, I was predisposed to love this.

As a gift from one of my best friends, I was predisposed to love this.

As a devotional book, needless to say, I loved this.

But.

I had a couple of issue with it--namely that he would start a line of reading, carry it for a couple of days, but not always end with the natural ending of that particular story-line bit. The rest would pop up later (and sometimes much later, although I cannot right off hand think of a good example). However, the biggest thing that bugged me was his choice of reading for Christmas Day. I expected something good on that day, something hopeful and uplifting and 'peace on earth, goodwill to all people'. What I got was dark and disturbing and not at all fitting to that particular day.

Now, I can understand that you can't predict the day Easter will fall on when someone is reading this book, because it changes year to year. However, you always know when Christmas Day is, and it is not a time for a dark reading--many people already feel depressed and struggle at that time of year. That's part of the point of Christmas: that a Light has shined in the Darkness. Did the compiler of this book honour that? No. And I was very confused as to why.

But really, those are my only complaints. I'd have given it a four and a half if I could do half-stars on here, but I went with the five to be generous. Overall, I did love it.

[Jeni · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although I've only been reading this since I received it at Christmas, I am really enjoying it. I am surprised by other reviewers saying it is rather fluff-y and not deep enough; I don't believe it was meant to replace regular Bible reading and study. Because the daily selections are relatively short, I have added it to my daily devotional time instead of using this exclusively. I do find the questions at the end of the excerpts to be thought-provoking and a good way to start my mind thinking about spiritual things. Allegory is one of the ways I think and learn best, so a paragraph is sufficient for me to place the time, setting and circumstances necessary to make the questions relevant. As I said, this would not be enough for my complete daily dose of Scripture, etc., but I find it to be a nice "appetizer" that prepares me well for the real spiritual feast with my Bible and another, "meatier" devotional. For those of you looking for deeper waters, I HIGHLY recommend "Disciplines for the Inner Life" by Bob Benson. And just because the relish tray doesn't fill you up, doesn't mean it's not nutritional. There - an allegory for you.

[Kris · Rating 3 out of 5]

Useful for a lovely Narnian quote every day, but rather sparse in content.

There's no original material in this "calendar-like" book other than a few over-simplified questions at the bottom of each entry. For instance, August 27th has:

"What is the lesson Aslan is trying to teach Lucy?"

Not exactly informative and original, is it? There's no critique of each passage, pointing out comparisons between books or characters. Basically each question asks why the scene is happening or what a character is trying to say, and searches for a moral lesson behind it. They're rather pointless and vague, considering that the Narniad is actually very complex.

But I'm still happy to have it, and glad I went through it all.

[Matt · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you're a big fan of the Narnia series, you'll enjoy being reminded of the books through daily excerpts. The "daily reflections" side of the book is a little weak. Usually, an excerpt is followed by a pretty obvious question that you probably already thought about when you read the books the first time. So a fun refresher for people who love Narnia, but not even close to as good as "A Year With C.S. Lewis" for use a daily devotional or inspirational book.

[Sarah Walker · Rating 5 out of 5]

Started book with a little concern, from reading the reviews.
Concern erased.
This book takes excerpts from the series, replays them, then asks thought provoking questions.
Period.
I've enjoyed reading the clips (my favorite parts), and want to trek Narnia's series again.
That's an excellent sign it's a great book. Excerpts are short, easy to read for devotions.

[Robert Starner]

A rather disappointing Daily Meditations book...takes most of the allure out of the Narnia books. Poses some interesting questions to reflect upon, but not consistently. Probably more suitable to someone is very very familiar with the Narnia books. I will have to go back and read the originals.

[Juliet · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved having a bit of Narnia to start the day with

[Abigail G · Rating 5 out of 5]

As good as always so many good quotes and concepts to ponder.

[Nathan Albright · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wanted to like this book more than I actually did.  Perhaps if I had read this book over the course of a year rather than over the course of a lunch break and then early evening, I would have liked this book more.  But as someone who once (as an adult) devoured all seven of the Narnia books in the course of a single evening after having read them in my youth, I preferred the experience of reading the entire chronicles in their chronological (if not publishing) order rather than the experience here of reading many fragments from all seven Narnia novels in a jumbled up format with reflective questions at the end of them.  That is not to say by any means that this collection is a bad one.  On the contrary, the editor of the book, Julia Roller, did a fine job in collecting worthwhile passages from the stories that sometimes go together.  Call me old fashioned, though, but I prefer to read a great collection of stories like that of the Chronicles of Narnia to be in narrative form (as they were written) rather than chopped up like word magnets on a fridge.

This book is organized like a devotional collection, although instead of biblical quotes or short essays, the page (or more) a day devotional includes various passages from the seven novels of the Chronicles of Narnia.  All of the novels are included roughly equally, and sometimes one passage will be followed by the passage in the book that follows it, although more often the passages will scatter between all the books in such a way as to be incoherent when read mostly all at once as I did--I read the first month's worth at the end of my lunch break after finishing another book and read the remaining eleven months at dinner.  Some of the passages are short paragraphs (like that of July 16, where a passage from A Horse And His Boy shows the Prince wanting Susan so badly) while others go on for two pages.  The months are all separated and the questions asked are good enough.  If this book is less than the sum of its parts, and it is, it is because of the haphazard construction of the passages rather than the lack of worth of the passages individuality.

But again, the issues with this text are mainly due to its structure.  Do the Narnia novels really need to be turned into a collage of passages with questions attached to them?  If someone wants to spend a year with Aslan, or many years with Aslan, the best response is to go out and get all of the Narnia novels and read them, and reread them as wanted.  While including a great deal of the material that is in the Chronicles of Narnia in about 400 pages or so, this book leaves out what is the most exciting and worthwhile part of the stories, and that is Lewis' easy narrative flow.  You get the parts, but not the glorious and well-structured whole.  This book feels like a posthumous cash grab on the part of a publisher who has the rights to Lewis' writings and who wants to make some money off of fans of the series.  Are we to expect devotional collections of the space trilogy or Lewis' noted (and often unsigned) book reviews, or his apologetic materials?  Perhaps we will see a book like A Year With Screwtape?  Just give me Lewis' books, not a feast of scraps like this one.

[Warren Rochelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

A Year with Aslan: Daily Reflections from the Chronicles of Narnia is my last book for 2020: last book read, last review. A Year with Aslan was also the first book I started in 2020. Somehow, this seems like a good book on which to end the year.

Like a lectionary, there are readings selected from The Chronicles for 365 days of the year, "combined with thought-provoking questions." Readers are intended to "discover a new and deeper way to experience Narnia" (back cover). I think, for the most part, that I did, although I have done some critical reading on Lewis when I prepped for a senior seminar I taught on him and his work. I also re-read The Chronicles (well, all but the end of The Last Battle--not too keen on rereading when the Dwarves kill the Talking Horses and the Talking Animals are abused by the Calormenes and other atrocities when Narnia falls) but then I do that every year, more or less. I've been in love with Narnia since the third grade. Yes, my readings and understandings of Lewis are more nuanced these days, but I am still in love. Narnia was my first idea of Faerie, a place I have visited often over the years, and attempted to tell some of its stories myself.

I digress.

I enjoyed this book and liked the selections chosen. Some of the "thought-provoking questions" did seem more aimed at children. I did wonder why February 29 was left out. I chose a favorite passage of my own to reread. I would suggest to the editors, if they ever revise A Year with Aslan, to hold a contest: ask readers to send in their favorite passages, suggest a question, and choose from the entries.

Does "pondering the world of Narnia" help us to "better understand our own[?]" So does any good fantasy.

Recommended.

[Justin · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not exactly Aslan
This book takes key events in all the Chronicles of Narnia books and invites the reader to ponder their significance. For example, Eustace Scrubb went from this whiny brat to a hero in Voyage of the Dawn Treader. Digory and the apple; why are we attracted to forbidden fruit?

The biggest problem is that all the questions are generic, almost agnostic self-help questions! There is not one question in the entire book for Christians to consider our faith. The author completely misses what Aslan said to Lucy about never being able to return to Narnia at the end of Voyage. Aslan told Edmund and Lucy to "find me by a different name" as in Jesus Christ. As a Christian, I loved the series because they were such a good gateway to introduce people to the story of Christianity in a literary, non-threatening way.

In Lewis's book Mere Christianity, Lewis said that God is creating New Men, not Nice Men. This book does the opposite. It makes us nicer, more self-reflective, persons. Not once is Jesus and salvation offered to transform us into New Men.

If you are a Christian, I would skip this book.

[Alex Richmond · Rating 4 out of 5]

With me finishing this book, I finally completed the first year long devotional that I have been given. Unlike others that are built around a religious theme or have a overlining goal, this book goes through seven bucks from the Chronicles of Narnia with each day having a simple question reflecting on morality and what the characters are going through more than a direct religious message.

This would be my one complaint if I had any, was that there was no overlying theme, and there is little in terms of a religious message other than what is already in the passages from the Chronicles of Narnia.

[Lauren · Rating 3 out of 5]

Short and simple, easy to read. I can see some of these quotes and questions leading to some influence in the devotional realm. Definitely nice to have this bit of Aslan every day. I was expecting more information with this daily reflections, but it was nice to have the daily reading of Aslan.

There are two faults to this book sadly:
1) If you intend to read this, do NOT read this in a leap year. There is no February 29 slot.
2) If you have not read the entire Narnian series prior to this, you will be privy to information that you do not know and you may be confused as to who certain characters are.

[Leila · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book has 365 stories from the chronicles without any specific order. Though it ends with the same words the chronicles ended. I waa expecting a story about Aslan when I bought it, but it is not the case. It's nice to read if you want to remember the book or pieces of it, but I couldn't enjoy it as much as I had rwad this series many yeara ago and in another language, which made ut even more difficult to connect to the book. The first few books I remembered better thanks to the movies and some parts of the last, but generally I don't think it's worth it, unless for remembering the books. Which, well, if one wants to remember a book, they can re-read it.

[Rebecca · Rating 3 out of 5]

I did enjoy this, but I think mainly because I am so familiar with The Chronicles of Narnia. I was a little disappointed by the lack of, well, reflection. It's more a passage from one of the books followed by a couple of questions. I also was bothered by the lack of any kind of system for the excerpts. It really feels absolutely random. Sometimes there will be a string of excerpts from the same book (often to follow through a scene, so that makes sense), but then it will just hop around from book to book with no rhyme or reason. I'm a little too OCD for that to sit right.

[Carol · Rating 5 out of 5]

I picked this up on a whim when I found it at my local used bookstore. If you love the Narnia books, you'll love this, because it's 365 days of excerpts from the books, in no particular order, but each one with little questions from the editor at the end. You can read and think about them if you want, or you don't. I didn't for most of them. The excerpts themselves almost always had a line or lines that jumped out at me.

Support your local used bookstore!

[Abigail · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not a bad book at all. The only thing that I found wrong with it is that the only contents are excerpts from the books. Nothing else is there. I was given the book as a present last year and was super excited to have a daily thought provoking book that may even be a devotional, which is what the book made me think it was.

[Josh · Rating 3 out of 5]

This work contains wonderful selections from Lewis’s spiritually deep writings about Narnia plus some thought provoking and self-reflective questions. However, my big disappointment is that I had expected it to get more explicit with exploring those concepts in light of Scripture. With that kind of addition this would be a must read work.

[Elisabeth Vugutsa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Just discovered there is no reading for leap year day :( otherwise enjoying the daily readings and thought provoking questions. I use a bullet journal where I record my responses and then reflect back monthly. It gives great reminders of snippets from all the books; for example 22 Feb, makes me want to read/listen to the series again, and is keeping me interested every day.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

Having read the Chronicles of Narnia many, many times it is wonderful each day to read a paragraph or two from one of the stories and recollect the story and then reflect on it. Most of the questions at the end of each reading were good and thoughtful questions. For anyone very familiar with the Chronicles this is an awesome book and a great way to start or end your day.

[HAROLD FRANK PARKER · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lessons from Narnia

We all believed in some place like Narnia in our youth and wished that it really existed. This Year in Reflection gives us the chance to see Narnia in a different way. Each day there’s a reflection from one of the books and it makes us more complete. I highly recently this for your edification.

[Judy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a series of daily readings created from the Narnia series with short questions as prompts for meditating. As a lifelong fan of Narnia it brought up a lot of good memories for me. I don't know if it would be effective if you weren't a familiar with the series, though. Sometimes I was able to relate to the mediation prompts, and sometimes not, but I still enjoyed the daily readings.