C. S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia

Friends with T. S. Eliot, J. R. R. Tolkien and other leading lights of English literature, Lewis wrote Christian allegories (The Screwtape Letters, featuring a junior devil) and a kind of quasi-science fiction, the so-called Space Trilogy (Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra and That Hideous Strength). These are rather HG Wellsian tales of travels to nearby planets; I call these quasi-SF because they feature things like breathable atmospheres on Venuses and Mars and earthlike gravities, things that were understood at the time he was writing the stories to be impossible.

The Chronicles of Narnia: Allegory for Kids

The Chronicles of Narnia are a series of seven books, all set in the magical kingdom of Narnia, where the animals and mythological beings talk and magic rules. Lewis hadn't intended to write a series of these stories when he began, yet every year for seven years, beginning in 1950, another Narnia book emerged from his pen.

Some non-Christians object to the books' Christian overtones, particularly the first one, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, which features the lion Aslan dying to save the life and soul of the boy Edmund. But a number of non-Christian religions feature a deity dying and returning, notably Mithrism and the pantheism of ancient Egypt (Osiris). And the allegory is subtle enough that most small children won't even recognize it as such unless it is pointed out to them by an adult - I certainly did, but I read the stories as an adult.

The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe

The first of the Chronicles is probably also the most 'perfect' of the form. In it, four English children, Lucy, Peter, Edmund and Susan discover a doorway into the land of Narnia, hidden behind the winter coats in an old wardrobe in the attic.

And it's a good thing those coats are handy, too, because in the land of Narnia, it is perpetually winter. It has been winter since the land fell under the spell of the White Witch, always winter, the Narnians tell the children, but never Christmas.

The White Witch captures and bewitches the youngest boy, Edmund, and it is up to the other three, abetted by the mysterious lion called Aslan, to find and rescue him.

Narnia is populated with delightful and magical characters, including the first resident Lucy meets, the faun Mr. Tumnus, with the torso of a human and the lower half of a goat. They meet a family of beavers and spend time in their lodge, while searching for Aslan.

Tracking the White Witch to her lair, it is disclosed that only the sacrifice of Aslan will redeem him, a sacrifice the noble lion gladly accepts. But an older magic than the Witch's from before the Dawn of Time, means that anyone who willingly sacrifices his life for another will return to live forever (okay, I guess the allegory is a little more overt than I had recalled), and Aslan returns to lead his allies in the overthrow of the Witch and the return of the seasons to Narnia.

Now a Major Motion Picture

C.S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is being released now by Disney as a live-action motion picture; plans are in the works to film the second Chronicle, Prince Caspian.