Considering he wrote The Chronicles of Narnia, it’s no real surprise to learn that C. S. Lewis received thousands of letters from youngsters during his career. Less predictable is that he attempted to respond to all of them, and I don’t mean with an impersonal line or two, or a pre-printed “C. S. Lewis, of Narnia fame, regrets to announce that he has neither the time nor urge to reply properly to what was probably a nice piece of fan mail.” Nope. As far as I can tell, more often than not he responded with letters that could be charming, friendly, amusing, insightful, and comforting, sometimes all at once, and in 1985 (37 years ago!) a selection were reprinted in a book titled, C.S. Lewis: Letters to Children. And because today is the anniversary of Lewis’ birth, I thought I’d choose some of my favourite passages and send them to you. Enjoy.

Remember that there are only three kinds of things anyone need ever do. (1) Things we ought to do (2) Things we’ve got to do (3) Things we like doing. I say this because some people seem to spend so much of their time doing things for none of the three reasons, things like reading books they don’t like because other people read them. Things you ought to do are things like doing one’s school work or being nice to people. Things one has got to do are things like dressing and undressing, or household shopping. Things one likes doing—but of course I don’t know what you like. Perhaps you’ll write and tell me one day.

C. S. Lewis
Letter to Sarah
3rd April 1949