The Silver Chair by C.S. Lewis

We are sad to be approaching the end of the Chronicles of Narnia as we finished this book.  Only one book remains.  As with the others, we loved this book and the adventures we read about along the way.

I know I've read this book before, but as we started it, I had very little recollection of what the story was.  We found it to be one of the darkest books of the series.

My guest reviewer, Darcy, found the book to be terrifying in some spots. There was even one night after we'd done our pre-bedtime reading, that I needed to tell them some funny stories to lighten the mood because they were a bit freaked out by what we'd read.

Picking up where The Voyage of the Dawn Treader leaves off, this book follows Eustace and his new friend Jill as they enter Narnia after running away from some bullies at their awful school.  Once there, a scuffle between the two friends ends with Eustace falling off a mountain and Jill meeting with Aslan.  He tells her it is her job to find King Caspian's missing son, Prince Rilian, and gives her signs to follow that will help her in her quest.  Jill manages to mess up the first few signs, which makes their task even harder.

Once she meets up with Eustace (who Aslan had guided safely to the bottom of the mountain) they set off on their quest along with their new friend, the eternal pessimist, Puddleglum.

A long journey follows, including a trip to the middle of the earth.  There are funny times, scary times and sad times along the way.  But there were times that were so exciting that Wesley was jumping out of his chair and clapping and cheering.  I love seeing him so excited about a book.

So, now we've begun The Last Battle and we will be sad to see the end of it.  Any suggestions for what we should read next?

The Day the Falls Stood Still by Cathy Marie Buchanan

This was another selection for my book club, and I just didn't enjoy this one at all.  It took me a long time to get interested in the book, and even then, I still wasn't all that interested.

This is the story of Bess Heath, a young woman growing up in Niagara Falls in the early 1900's, just leading into World War I.  Bess's family is one of wealth and privilege until her father suddenly loses his job and the family finds themselves falling on hard times.  While struggling to keep her family afloat, Bess meets and falls in love with Tom Cole.  Tom is not in the same league as Bess's family, but he is a man who knows the Falls and the river and has special abilities to see dangers there that others cannot see.

Their story is sweet and endearing, but it is buried beneath a story of the development of Niagara Falls, the building of hydroelectric plants, and how the development is beginning to destroy the natural beauty and majesty of the falls.  Tom struggles to fight against that development while needing to work for the plants to support his family after his return from the war.  I found the details of this struggle to be really, truthfully, uninteresting.  I normally enjoy historical fiction, but I really found it hard to get emotionally invested in this story.  I also felt the tragedy that happened at the end of the book was heavily foreshadowed, so it wasn't surprising when it happened.

The woman in our group who chose this book is from the Niagara region, and I can see why she would find it interesting for that reason.  There is a lot of talk about the different areas of Niagara Falls and if you were really familiar with that area, it would be fun to read about that.  But with me having only a tourist's knowledge of the area, that wasn't an important feature for me.

It's a fairly light book, but definitely not a page turner.