I once had a student whose surname was Aslan. I remember making some silly comment on the similarity of her name to that of the lion in the Narnia stories. She fixed me with a look of forbearance for adult ignorance that only a ten-year-old can muster and said:
Aslan is the Turkish word for lion.
Pretty cool, eh?
If you have read The Chronicles of Narnia, (or at least seen the movies), you know that Aslan is the great lion who helps the inhabitants of Narnia find the inner strength they need to battle the forces of evil.
The seven volumes of The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis (1898-1963) were published between 1950 and 1956. They’ve been in print ever since, with a hundred million copies in 47 languages having been sold to date.
The Chronicles of Narnia in publication order:
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (1950)
Prince Caspian: The Return to Narnia (1951)
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (1952)
The Silver Chair (1953)
The Horse and His Boy (1954)
The Magician’s Nephew (1955)
The Last Battle (1956)
Just listing the titles makes me want to sit down and read through them all again.
In that order.