Michael O’Brien’s A Landscape with Dragons is an unusual and interesting book. O’Brien, the author of numerous works of Christian fiction (e.g. the superlative Father Elijah) and non-fiction, is also an expert on fantasy literature, especially for children. That genre is the ostensible subject here, but in fact O’Brien ranges widely, fitting together essays on the formation of the Christian imagination with readings of works from authors O’Brien recommends (e.g. Tolkien, C S Lewis and George MacDonald) as well as those he believes are fundamentally disordered and therefore off-limits for Christian parents looking to regulate their children’s reading.

Perhaps most interesting are O’Brien’s comments on works that fall somewhere in the gray area between obviously wholesome and utterly without merit. O’Brien assigns several prominent fantasy authors (whom many Christians find unobjectionable) into this ‘Read with extreme caution’ category, e.g. Ursula Le Guin and Madeleine L’Engle. O’Brien's standards are very strict indeed: any suggestion that powers or points of view associated with witchcraft or the occult can be used for the good are assigned a serious red flag. This means a ‘good witch’ is an oxymoron in O’Brien’s reckoning, and that dragons can never, ever be tamed.

I have a great deal of sympathy with O’Brien’s seriousness, and with his almost desperate urge to convince readers that the formation of a child’s imagination is crucial in raising that child in a godly way. But – and I suppose you sensed a ‘but’ was coming at this point – I wonder if O’Brien worries just a bit too much. Children are plastic and fragile, indeed, but they are also resilient and not stupid. I feared by the end of the book that O’Brien was granting mere storybooks vast, unwarranted powers over the fates of children. I realize this is not his intention – he is looking at the broad scope of the input into a child’s imagination over years – but again and again he suggests that a single exposure to a disordered story can scar and warp a child’s imagination, and even threaten her very soul.

This book was written in the late 1990s, just before the Harry Potter books became a global phenomenon. It’s no surprise that O’Brien quickly emerged thereafter as one of J K Rowling’s most prominent Christian critics. For O’Brien, no story that features witches and wizards can be a good story; this is inverting the Biblical order, and children cannot be trusted to realize that in our real world no one is born a witch with the power to choose to use magical gifts for good or ill.

But in this book I see O’Brien (rightly) laud Tolkien’s work, which features a wizard, one Gandalf the Grey, and I wonder where exactly lies the line that separates him from young Mr Potter. O’Brien anticipates this, and tries to divert the argument by suggesting that Gandalf doesn’t really employ the magical powers of a typical wizard, that he is more a moral and spiritual guide. But O’Brien – who is clearly a reader of great sensitivity and subtlety – must realize this is a convenient sidestep at best. I seem to recall Gandalf regularly hurling spells in open warfare against beings of his own kind or much similar, and carrying a staff that is simply Harry Potter’s wand writ large.

So I will agree to disagree with O’Brien on some points, but on the whole this is a book still highly worth reading. Of particular value is its last section, in which O’Brien lists out hundreds of books for children and young people of all ages that are sure to be solid food for forming Christian imaginations. Any Christian parent will benefit from access to these suggestions, and from the very powerful foundation for following them O’Brien provides. ( )

Assesses modern literature in light of a Roman Catholic worldview. Includes extensive lists of good books for all ages.