The Horse and His Boy is book #3 in C.S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia timeline. Readers meet Bree, a powerful and confident war horse, whose homeland is Narnia, hence the reason he can speak to Shasta, a poor fisherman’s boy, on the brink of being sold into slavery. Bree convinces him to escape. When Bree finds out Shasta can’t ride he asks him if he can fall. “I suppose anyone can fall,” said Shasta. “I mean can you fall and get up again without crying and mount again and fall again and yet not be afraid of falling?” What a vivid picture of perseverance!

Shasta and Bree’s path crosses with a princess fleeing from an arranged marriage, Avaris. They start journeying to Narnia together but are separated when Shasta is suddenly mistaken for a prince and whisked away.

Meanwhile, Avaris overhears an evil prince plotting to capture Queen Lucy in Narnia and destroy another land along the way. When Avaris and Shasta reunite they ride for all they’re worth to alert King Lune of the trouble. Bree says he can run no more and even gives the reason why. “But one of the worst results of being a slave and being forced to do things is that when there is no one to force you anymore you find you have almost lost the power of forcing yourself.”

Aslan tells Shasta, “I was the lion…I was the lion who forced you to join Arvais. I was the cat who comforted you among the houses of the dead. I was the lion who drove the jackals from you while you slept. I was the lion who gave the horses the new strength of fear for the last miles so they should read King Lune in time. And I was the lion you do not remember who pushed the boat in which you lay, a child near death, so that it came to shore where a man sat wakeful at midnight to receive you.”

Guidance, courage, justice, and forgiveness are some of the impactful themes wonderfully woven through this gripping tale. Won’t you join Kate and Sheils as they saddle up for Narnia? Happy Reading dear friends!