I can definitely see why reading this first is encouraged, instead of the Narnia chronology strategy that I've been following that starts with The Magician's Nephew. Why get all the prologue context when you can experience the magic of Narnia for the first time with the Pevensies? Given how Lewis devised the series, it's no surprise that this was the strongest book so far for me —it has the best combination of plot and engaging characters, in my estimation, but not hard to do when you're dealing with a nefarious queen and...Lion God. I do think it's a clever conceit to have the kids grow into adulthood in Narnia, only to stumble back into childhood at the end of the novel. I've always wondered how much of a mindfuck that would actually end up being? I'm not sure how I'm going to end up feeling about the series overall, but reading this book, you do get a sense of how it became part of that fantasy canon in the first place.