Re-Arranging Narnia
I love The Chronicles of Narnia. I read them first as a child and now, almost three decades later, I still love reading them. I'm reading them to my youngest son now, having read them to my older son a couple years ago. So both are six at the event of their first (of hopefully, many) trip through Narnia.

Why, though, have the publishers monkeyed with the order of the books? Growing up, the Chronicles were numbered in the order they were published. This meant "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" was book 1, and "The Magician's Nephew" was book six.

But now, the publisher insists on putting them out in order of the chronology within the story, making "Nephew" first, "Wardrobe" second and--this is just heinous--"The Horse and His Boy" third. This probably seems like a minor point to some people, but I don't think it is. Rearranging the chronology of the books altars the story.

Take the TRUE second book in the series, "Prince Caspian" as a case in point. The first couple chapters in the book actually take place after some of the later chapters. This is called story-telling. Lewis sets up a situation, has us intrigued, then fills in the background of how his story got there. This is a necessary device sometimes because the "how we got here" part isn't as interesting as "where we are now" but it still must be told. So you tell the interesting part, hook the reader, then backtrack a bit, making the later payoff that much better. The entire series was written the same way.

"The Magician's Nephew" is supposed to come later. After having learned of Narnia in the first five books, we then learn how it came about, where the lamp post came from, and why Sons of Adam and Daughters of Eve have such a special place there. To change the order of the stories is to give us the "why" before we care. Not that "Nephew" is an uninteresting book, but it is MOST interesting if read where it's supposed to be!