I had been wanting to read this ever since I took a children's literature class about a year ago. We touched on this novel briefly and the plot of it sounded very intriguing. It was, indeed, very intriguing and it was a good adventure story. However, it was also very didactic. That's fairly normal for stories of that time, but it can get a little old when the author makes it so blatantly didactic. Overall, though, I very much enjoyed this novel and it is a must read for fans of Tolkien, Rowling, and C.S. Lewis.