Source of legend and lyric, reference and conjecture, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
is for most children pure pleasure in prose. While adults try to
decipher Lewis Carroll's putative use of complex mathematical codes in
the text, or debate his alleged use of opium, young readers simply dive
with Alice through the rabbit hole, pursuing "The dream-child moving
through a land / Of wonders wild and new." There they encounter the
White Rabbit, the Queen of Hearts, the Mock Turtle, and the Mad Hatter,
among a multitude of other characters--extinct, fantastical, and
commonplace creatures. Alice journeys through this Wonderland, trying
to fathom the meaning of her strange experiences. But they turn out to
be "curiouser and curiouser," seemingly without moral or sense.
For more than 130 years, children have reveled in the delightfully non-moralistic, non-educational
virtues of this classic. In fact, at every turn, Alice's new
companions scoff at her traditional education. The Mock Turtle, for
example, remarks that he took the "regular course" in school: Reeling,
Writhing, and branches of Arithmetic-Ambition, Distraction,
Uglification, and Derision. Carroll believed John Tenniel's
illustrations were as important as his text. Naturally, Carroll's
instincts were good; the masterful drawings are inextricably tied to
the well-loved story. (All ages) --Emilie Coulter
Monday, December 26, 2011
FREE -- Alice's Adventures in Wonderland [Kindle Edition]
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