The Great Divorce
Acceptable with guidance. Age: 16+. A Catholic review of this book for parents.
Our review
A man rides a flying bus from a gray, rainy town up to the edge of Heaven. The riders are invited to stay, but they must let go of their pride and their favorite sins. Most of them choose to go back. The story shows that people can shut themselves out of joy. This is a short allegory about why souls refuse God. Each ghost clings to one sin and calls it something better. Good Books for Catholic Kids recommends it for age 16 and up and compares it to Dante. One point needs a parent: the story pictures souls leaving Hell after death. The Church teaches that our choice is made final at death. Lewis himself says in his preface that the book is a fantasy and not a guess about the afterlife, so the bus is a picture of choices made in this life, and the story ends as a dream.
For parents
Read aloud from about fifteen. Independent reading from sixteen, the Catholic list's placement. The book is short, about 118 pages. No Common Sense Media age was found. Correct one thing clearly: in this story souls take a bus out of Hell and may stay in Heaven if they repent. The Church teaches that death ends the time for accepting or rejecting God's grace (CCC 1021), that Hell is eternal (CCC 1035), and that Purgatory is for souls already saved (CCC 1030). Lewis himself says in his preface that the book is a fantasy and "not even a guess or a speculation at what may actually await us." So the bus is a picture of choices made in this life, and the story ends with the narrator waking from a dream. Read it that way. Ask: which ghost is most like me? Why does the man with the lizard hesitate, and what happens when he consents? Why would anyone prefer the grey town? What does the ghost bishop love more than truth? Talk about confession, and about why small sins we refuse to give up matter.