Classically Readable #1: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

The new Classically Readable meme was devised by me so that I could force myself to read more classics and occasionally fill my little brain with something besides magic swords, steampunk cats, spaceships, and general fluff.  (Not that there's anything wrong with fluff-- fluff is what I live for.)  Since the blogging world is typically obsessed with the new and the soon to-be-released, I also thought it might be fun to look back (sometimes way, way back) at the classics.  Because there must be a reason people still read (or claim to have read)  these books after all these years, right? 

Now, without further ado: Alice.  So picked because it's a fun classic to start with, short and easy to read.  I read and re-read an Alice picture book when I was younger, saw the Disney movie along with a million other kids, love the quirky 2010 Tim Burton movie, and have a poster of the Cheshire Cat up in my room.  But I was always curious to read the original stuff-- the literary madness which started it all...

Genre: children's fantasy
Pages: varies a lot depending on the edition-- usually more than 100, but less than 150 pages
Published: 1865 by Lewis Carroll (a pseudonym for Charles Lutwidge)
Selected Theme Song:

Jefferson Airplane - Jefferson Airplane - White Rabbit .mp3

Found at bee mp3 search engine

Review:

Seven-and-a-half year old Alice is sitting outside with her sister one lazy afternoon when she chances to see an unpunctual, talking rabbit with a pocket watch run past.  Adventuresome Alice is quick to pursue and so tumbles a long way down a rabbit hole.  At the bottom she finds an enchanted, unfamiliar, and incredibly random world.  In Wonderland, the Mad Hatter and March Hare have an endless tea party with their dozy friend the Dormouse and the fearsome Queen of Hearts holds court among her playing card subjects.  Also present (and less well-represented in the movie versions) is a wailing baby who sometimes turns into a pig, a very rude Duchess, an unfortunate lizard, and a very unfair criminal trial preceded over by the King and Queen of Hearts.  Young and very British Alice causes quite a stir in this bizarre world, for her 'perfectly sensible' ways of doing things seem as alien to the inhabitants of Wonderland as they are to her.  Alice quickly finds that, in the kingdom at the bottom of the rabbit hole, one must struggle to keep one's proper size, talking mice can be surprisingly touchy on the subject of cats, and keeping one's head on one's shoulders is a much greater challenge than she would have hoped.

Alice is a perfectly mesmerizing tale: completely unpredictable and engrossing, not least due to the fact that it seems to be complete nonsense, interspersed with parody poems and filled with purposeful paradoxes.  This nonsensical quality is what has kept it a classic over the century and a half since it was first penned and inspired so many film adaptations and art.  As I read it, I wondered: was there a method to the madness of Alice?  Author Lewis Carroll-- actually Charles Lutwidge, an English writer and deacon-- is usually considered to have loosely based his heroine Alice on a real-life girl called Alice Liddell.  Carroll invented the story to entertain Alice and her two sisters during an afternoon rowing and later wrote the story down, with some additions.  Alice became a children's classic almost immediately after it was published, though in the modern day it seems like adults read it more often than children (?-- most of the children I know read If You Give A Mouse A Cookie more than Alice)  The sequel, Alice Through The Looking Glass, was published afterwards but tends to be lumped in with the events of the original Alice (for example, the walrus and the carpenter poem actually appears only in Looking Glass).

More analytical, sinister, and maybe unlikely interpretations of Alice are everywhere-- many people like to believe that Carroll's characters represent real-life figures, or that his stories are symbolic, with important themes or political commentary.  There are also some long-running rumors still going around about how Carroll was an opium addict or liked little girls a little more than he should have (ugh), but I really don't know how much credibility those have.  I "get" some of these allegorical claims for Alice: like the Queen of Hearts is supposed to be a caricature of Queen Elizabeth I, who the author didn't much like and the crazy Wonderland system of justice a parody of the British court system.  Another theory I found is that Alice's sometimes scary, sometimes whimsical adventures represent her coming-of-age in an era when-- just like today, I guess-- growing up had extreme ups and downs.  

Most people in the know do agree that Carroll wrote the books (Adventures and the later Looking Glass) with his friend Alice Liddell in mind, and as a dedication to her even after she grew up and moved away, which she did shortly after he published his book.  Thinking of Alice in this way puts a melancholy spin on the story, but Alice as a book couldn't be more light-hearted and even funny in its weird, whimsical way.  I was totally thrilled to discover  that the original Alice is definitely worthy of having inspired so many other stories, art, and films.  I adored this classic children's book, but the jury is still out on whether all children enjoy Alice's nonsensical adventures, or if some would find them simply confusing.

Rating:

Favorite Children's and Middle-Grade Authors & Books

So, of all the genres I've reviewed and bragged on, I've hardly published a single post about the books which are most important to readers-- the books for children and middle-grade readers which first turned most of us on to reading.  So, I thought I'd feature some of the books and book series which were my favorites when I was younger and remain some of my favorites today.

The Harry Potter series by JK Rowling
To me and to the millions of other readers young and old who have fallen in love with Hogwarts and its students, Harry Potter is much more than kid-lit.  Nevertheless, I have to credit it with making me into such a voracious reader.  When I was seven or eight and had read through the first four Harry Potters, I set off on this quest to discover a book which I loved even half as much, a character I identified with as much as Hermione Grange, and a magical world even half as incredible.  I never did find one, and still haven't today, but the quest is what first made me such a frequent visitor to the library.  

The Children of the Red King series by Jenny Nimmo
Charlie Bone could be called the next best thing to Harry Potter, and so it was to its pages that my search took me next.  Charlie Bone becomes a student at the clandestine and exclusive Bloor's Academy, where artistically-talented students study alongside students with special powers, "the Endowed", a group of children descended from the mythical Red King.  The series is aimed at younger kids than Harry Potter, I would say, but the stories and the characters are incredible.  I believe there are now seven books, and the series is finally finished.

 The Chronicles of Narnia by CS Lewis

I think the magical world of Narnia is one best experienced when you're about the Pevensies' age: this is a happier literary place than Harry Potter's world, despite the White Witch and any number of goblins.  My favorite books in the series are: The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe; Prince Caspian; The Horse and His Boy; and The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.  The Last Battle is sad and allegorical-- I could almost do without that one.

 The Inkworld Trilogy, The Thief Lord, and other books by Cornelia Funke
Inkheart became my new favorite book when I was ten or so: it was about a girl, Meggie, who could do exactly what I, a shy bookworm, wanted most: to travel into books and call up the characters from their pages into the real world, even to write her own stories into physical being.  I can't tell you how many times I read this book-- recently I saw a girl about the age I was when I first read it reading it for the first time, and I'm glad to see that it's still so popular.

 Matilda and other books by Roald Dahl
Matilda is another MG-lit heroine who loves books and has a magical power herself.  This book was another frequent re-read for me, and I also liked The Witches, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and The BFG.  I still have the Roald Dahl boxset on my bookshelf.  His books are true children's classics.

 The House of the Scorpion and other books by Nancy Farmer
The House of the Scorpion was maybe my first foray into science fiction, or good science fiction.  Anyone, pre-teen or adult, who reads this novel is bound to remember it and its haunting themes and ending forever.  The Sea of Trolls and its Norse-myth-based sequels are fantasy, but equally incredible.  I love the character of Thorgil and, of course, the elves and trolls.

The Wolves in the Walls, Coraline, Instructions, and others by Neil Gaiman
Yep, I discovered Neil Gaiman at a fairly young age.  Coraline was the first I read by him, and the story really impressed me-- it was so much eerier and better written than Goosebumps books, which were my first foray into horror.  I quickly devoured his picture books for younger children, as well... I only wish I'd gotten to read some of his newer books for younger people, like The Graveyard Book (which I read anyway, of course) and The Blueberry Girl when I was reading the others and wishing he had more for kids.  I loved Gaiman's writing style so much that I starting reading his adult books, like American Gods and Stardust.

Did ya'll ever read any of these books as children, teenagers, or as adults?  Which books from your childhood/pre-teenhood are the most memorable to you, or made you into the reader you are today?