I began reading when I was young and never got far. Now I see why. I was reading it to my daughter and within the first few chapters the book tells in clear language that the white witch kidnaps children which did not put me off on the right foot. The story was sort of interesting, but felt more annoying than interesting. And I'm not sure if it was actually interesting because of the story itself or because I kept trying to figure out why others seemed to love this book so much. I extremely disliked the writing style. I disliked how the book referenced itself and would specifically mention "in the previous chapter" and things like that. And the wording and descriptions often felt very awkward. I previously read "The Magician's Nephew" to my daughter. I wasn't very impressed with it, either, but I had hopes that this first book in the series would be an improvement. It sadly, was not, IMO. There were moments of humor that I laughed at. And my daughter said she really quite enjoyed it. So, maybe I'm being too critical? Or possibly I'm jaded because after reading Lord of the Rings I expected too much. I get that it's a kids book, but after also reading the Whatever After series (which is really well written in plain children's language), this book really seems to fall flat. Sadly, I was hoping for better but in the end I was very disappointed.