Looking for a C.S. Lewis novel study that will engage your students while giving them plenty to discuss, analyze, and write about? The Horse and His Boy is an exciting addition to a Chronicles of Narnia novel study for upper elementary and middle school readers.
As Shasta and Bree journey across Narnia, students encounter adventure, danger, friendship, courage, and characters from very different cultures. Beneath the exciting plot, The Horse and His Boy provides opportunities for meaningful conversations about perspective, perseverance, identity, loyalty, and the ways people respond to challenges.
Why Teach The Horse and His Boy?
C.S. Lewis’s The Horse and His Boy is the third book in the chronological order of The Chronicles of Narnia. The story follows Shasta, a young boy who discovers that he may not be who he thought he was. After escaping with Bree, a talking horse, Shasta begins an unexpected journey toward Narnia.
Along the way, students can explore how the setting, characters, and cultures influence the story.
Explore Different Perspectives
One of the most interesting aspects of The Horse and His Boy is the contrast between the cultures Shasta encounters.
Students can examine how characters’ beliefs, customs, expectations, and experiences shape the way they see the world. This creates opportunities to discuss cultural differences and perspectives while encouraging students to think about how their own experiences influence the way they interpret people and situations.
These discussions can also help students recognize that a character’s perspective may be shaped by circumstances they don’t initially understand.
Analyze Character Development
Shasta’s journey provides plenty of material for character analysis.
At the beginning of the novel, Shasta doesn’t know much about his identity or where he belongs. As he faces obstacles and makes difficult decisions, he becomes more confident and courageous.
Students can track Shasta’s development throughout the novel and examine questions such as:
- How does Shasta change throughout the story?
- What experiences influence his decisions?
- How does Bree affect Shasta’s journey?
- What does Shasta learn from the challenges he faces?
- Which characters help or hinder his development?
These questions encourage students to move beyond simply recalling what happened and begin thinking about why characters behave the way they do.
Discuss Courage and Perseverance
Shasta and the other characters face plenty of obstacles throughout the story. Their journey provides a natural opportunity to discuss courage, perseverance, fear, and overcoming challenges.
Students can identify moments when characters must make difficult choices and consider whether courage means being fearless—or moving forward despite being afraid.
This can lead to meaningful connections between the characters’ experiences and challenges students encounter in their own lives.
Examine Themes and Life Lessons
The Horse and His Boy contains numerous themes that work well for classroom discussion and literary analysis.
Students can explore:
- Identity and belonging
- Courage
- Perseverance
- Friendship and loyalty
- Trust
- Deception
- Responsibility
- Perspective
- Overcoming adversity
Rather than simply identifying a theme, challenge students to find specific evidence from the novel that supports their thinking.
This makes the book an excellent choice for practicing text evidence, reading comprehension, critical thinking, and written responses.
Build Reading Comprehension Skills
An engaging story provides an excellent foundation for teaching reading skills.
While reading The Horse and His Boy, students can practice identifying important details, analyzing characters, determining theme, making inferences, summarizing chapters, and supporting their ideas with evidence from the text.
Chapter-by-chapter comprehension questions can help keep students accountable for their reading while giving you opportunities to check understanding as you move through the novel.
Add Vocabulary and Language Arts Practice
A novel study also provides a natural way to integrate vocabulary and language skills into your reading instruction.
Students can encounter unfamiliar words in context, explore their meanings, practice using new vocabulary, and complete grammar activities connected to the novel.
Integrating these skills into the literature you’re already teaching makes your language arts instruction more meaningful—and saves you from having to create every activity yourself.
Make The Horse and His Boy a Complete Novel Unit
If you’re planning to teach The Horse and His Boy as a whole-class novel, literature circle, small-group book study, or independent reading project, a complete novel study can make planning much easier.
My The Horse and His Boy Novel Study is designed for grades 4–6 and includes printable and Google Drive™ formats. The no-prep unit provides chapter comprehension questions, vocabulary and grammar activities, writing and extension activities, assessments, teacher plans, answer keys, and Common Core standards alignment.
What’s Included
- Teacher lesson plans and pacing guide
- Vocabulary and grammar activities
- Chapter-by-chapter comprehension questions
- Writing and extension activities
- Vocabulary and comprehension assessments
- Answer keys
- Printable and Google Drive™ formats
- Common Core standards alignment
The complete unit is designed to help you spend less time preparing materials and more time discussing the novel and working with your students.
See what people are saying about the Chronicles of Narnia Novel Studies by The Teaching Bank!
Bring The Horse and His Boy Into Your Classroom
If your students enjoy fantasy, adventure, talking animals, and the Chronicles of Narnia, The Horse and His Boy can provide much more than an entertaining story. It gives students opportunities to examine characters, compare perspectives, discuss themes, build vocabulary, practice comprehension, and think critically about the choices characters make.
And because the story is filled with adventure and unexpected twists, there’s plenty to keep students turning the pages.
Ready to make your The Horse and His Boy unit easier to teach?
Try a free sample of the novel study for The Horse and His Boy
You can purchase The Horse and His Boy novel study at the following locations:
You can also explore the complete collection of Chronicles of Narnia novel studies if you’d like to continue the series with your students.
You can also buy the entire series of novel studies bundled together for a discount.
Connect with Fellow Educators!
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