Eustace Scrubb was rude, arrogant, condescending, and skeptical of the stories his cousins Lucy and Edmund Pevensie told of their visits to the magical land of Narnia. His skepticism is challenged when the three children are drawn through the frame of a painting and find themselves on the deck of The Dawn Treader - a ship sailing across the oceans east of Narnia. On the ship, the Pevensies are reunited with their friend Caspian, who is now the Narnian king and is exploring the ocean and searching for seven Lords who years earlier fled Narnia to escape the evil King Miraz.

C.S. Lewis's The Voyage of the Dawn Treader takes the reader along on this voyage.

We experience slave traders, a transmogrification, a giant sea serpent, invisible men, a pond that turns to gold anything that touches it, an ancient wizard, an anthropomorphized star, merpeople, and the edge of the world. The action is nonstop and takes us from conflict to conflict, reminiscent of Homer's Odyssey. As with the other Narnia stories, Lewis moves us from adventure to adventure, while developing and evolving characters in a short space. One of the characters experiences an epiphany and changes from a useless whiner to realize how his actions have hurt others; others rise to their challenges with heroic actions; and Caspian discovers his responsibility as a King.

Aslan makes an occasional appearance to help or advise others in the story, but he stays mainly in the background.

Lewis packs a great deal into such a short story. This is one of the stronger novels in these Chronicles.