Once Upon a Wardrobe

Megs Devonshire’s first-person point of view in the novel is interwoven with a close third-person narration conveying George’s perspective. What is the author’s purpose in dividing the narrative this way? How would the book have differed if it had been told entirely from Megs’s perspective?

What is The Role of Faith and Imagination in Once Upon a Wardrobe? Explain how Callahan illustrates the interplay between faith and imagination through the characters of George and C. S. Lewis.

Discuss the meaning of George’s question, “Where did Narnia come from?” (13). Do Lewis’s series of stories answer his question? Why or why not?

How does the author use the lion and the wardrobe as symbols and motifs in Once Upon a Wardrobe? Include details about their meaning in Lewis’s The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and how Callahan elaborates on this symbolism.

At the beginning of the novel, Megs dismisses The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe as a children’s story. How does her attitude toward Lewis’s novel and stories change over the course of the narrative? What prompts this change?

In the dedication to his goddaughter in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Lewis states, “[M]aybe someday you’ll be old enough to read fairy tales again” (25). What does Lewis mean? How does the discussion of the power of fairy tales in Once Upon a Wardrobe underline Lewis’s point?

Once Upon a Wardrobe combines historical fiction with biographical facts about Lewis. How does Callahan’s merging of fact and fiction affect the reader’s experience? How does this technique underscore the author’s overall message about The Power of Storytelling in Shaping Human Experience?

Once Upon a Wardrobe conveys how Lewis turned “all he was […] into a magical story about Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy” (191). Summarize the people, incidents, and literature that most influenced Lewis. How did these elements translate into the world of Narnia?