Rating: Needs Parent Supervision

Reading Level: High School

A mature audience will pick up in the history and literary development that set the background for what made Lewis and Tolkien so profound for their time. Their friendship blossomed and then it dwindled, but the author illustrates it as still serving a meaningful purpose.

Possible Concerns:

  • Bible stories as myths. I don’t like how early pages put the story of Jonah and the Whale in the same gallery as with Buddha and mythological tales (See images below; this is a big reason why I have the age for high school and above).
  • Fantasy Peril. Fantastical spiders, and other magical beasts attack the narrators
  • Fantasy & Magic. Of course. Spells, creatures, wizards, talking beasts, talking vegetables….
  • WWI trenches and loss. Both men serve in the trenches of WWI, friends die, they are sick and injured…
  • Parents’ deaths, wives’ deaths. A dad dies, a mom died. Later a wide dies due to cancer… Very tragic losses.
  • Romance, deceit. Lewis marries Edith Bratt, without the council of friends. She is divorced, which made things difficult from the perspective of Lewis’s church and his friends, who were against it. In general, secret marriages without friends’ approval seems like a bad approach to promote, so this might be worth a conversation.

Things I liked:

  • Honesty, Redemption: I liked how the book didn’t shy away from the hard or confusing parts of their friendship, and in a way redeemed it by illustrating the good that came of it even if it didn’t end well.
  • Faithful examples. Tolkien is described as being inspired by his Mom’s faith. Also when he was orphaned, a local clergyman helped him. It is refreshing to have positive church influencers in literature; they are often villainous.
  • Lewis’s Conversion Story is given, and it is certainly unconventional.

In several instances the book examines biblical stories as literary devices, lining them up with serious myth. So I would recommend this only for a reader who is mature enough in their faith to know this doesn’t affect the Bible’s distinguished nature and the infallible, true Word of God.

Tread carefully, parents. Although I enjoyed this as an adult, as a chronic doubter in my youth, I can say this needs caution.

This book was also reviewed by House Full of Bookworms: https://www.housefullofbookworms.com/mythmakers-the-remarkable-fellowship-of-c-s-lewis-and-j-r-r-tolkien/

Jonah and the Whale is in the same gallery Greek Mythology and stories about Buddha.
Jonah and the Whale is given as an a example of Monomyth.
The biblical account of Jesus is described as following this literary pattern. This is less egregious than other times the Bible is mentioned, but still is in the context of humans developing stories with mostly myths as the other examples, so tread carefully. This might need some discussion.