failing like never before

I remember when I was first introduced to C.S. Lewis and the Chronicles of Narnia. It was on one of those hot lazy Saturdays, where you want to do nothing but lay down and stare at the ceiling. I would have been seven years old at the time, I remember because of the house we were living in. My sister had a box set of the Chronicles of Narnia, and they still sit in her room to this day. I pulled out The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (it was labeled as "Book 1" in our box set) and settled down to read it. It was so entrancing that after I finished I reached for book 2, Prince Caspian. I finished the entire Chronicles of Narnia in one day when I was seven years old. Truth to tell, I doubt I understood all of it at the time, but the prose and the way the words wove together seemed so lovely and mystical at the time that I couldn't stop until there was nothing left to read. Yet after that day, the Chronicles left my mind and I thought nothing of them for many years.

I remember in fifth grade, a classmate brought up The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, and that I had boasted of how I had read through the entire Chronicles in one day, and then proceeded to rattle off a brief description of each book. I used to be quite the arrogant child (still am in many ways, although now I have so much less to boast about). Not much later, my sister began reading Lewis's The Screwtape Letters. Yet still after that, I thought nothing of Lewis and the Chronicles for many years.