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Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll
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Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass

by Lewis Carroll

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This book will never grow old. "Through the Looking Glass" captures the imagination of youth perfectly. ( )
Mary_Z | Jul 3, 2009 |  
A sweet little tale of Alice as she dreams of the wonderful place of Wonderland. Similar to Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, Alice experiences many peculiar things along her journey that leave her questioning more and more and even excited. Great for adults and children. The book does not have quite the same scary bad Queen of Hearts as the movie portrays her, or even the creepy Cheshire Cat, but with a great imagination this book could be any child’s Wonderland. ( )
blondierocket | Jun 28, 2009 | 1 vote
My first introduction to Alice in Wonderland was seeing the Disney movie when I was little. I remember enjoying it, but at the same time being annoyed by the confusing nature. I read the book a couple years later. At the time I loved the storyline but was thoroughly frustrated by the books' lack of cohesion. I reread Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass recently, and I found them entertaining in an entirely new fashion. If you try to force sensibility into any of the situations, you will miss out on the enjoyability of the random. Both books are the closest to reading a dream I have ever come upon, due to the randomness of the events. It is a fun read for adults and kids alike. ( )
jchancel | Jun 19, 2009 |  
I think that the failure not only of Children's Literature as a whole, but of our very concept of children and the child's mind is that we think it a crime to challenge and confront that mind. Children are first protected from their culture--kept remote and safe--and then they are thrust incongruously into a world that they have been told is unsafe and unsavory; and we expected them not to blanch.

It has been my policy that the best literature for children is not a trifling thing, not a simplification of the adult or a sillier take on the world. Good Children's literature is some of the most difficult literature to write because one must challenge, engage, please, and awe a mind without resorting to archetypes or life experience.

Once a body grows old enough, we are all saddened by the thought of a breakup. We have a set of knowledge and memories. The pain returns to the surface. Children are not born with these understandings, so to make them understand pain, fear, and loss is no trivial thing. The education of children is the transformation of an erratic and hedonistic little beast into a creature with a rational method by which to judge the world.

A child must be taught not to fear monsters but to fear instead electrical outlets, pink slips, poor people, and lack of social acceptance. The former is frightening in and of itself, the latter for complex, internal reasons.

I think the real reason that culture often fears sexuality and violence in children is because they are such natural urges. We fear to trigger them because we cannot control the little beasts. We cannot watch them every minute.

So, the process of Children's Literature is to write something complex and challenging, something that the child can test and turn over in their mind without inadvertently wondering about things like anal sex and drug addiction. Of course, we must remember that none of this stuff will ever be more strange or disturbing to a child than the pure, unadulterated world that we will always have failed to prepare them for.

However, perhaps we can fail a little less and give them Alice. Not all outlets are to be feared, despite what your parents taught you. In fact, some should be prodded with regularity, and if you dare, not a little joy. ( )
Terpsichoreus | Jun 8, 2009 | 3 vote
Great books read them to your kids or let them read it. You will not be disipointed. ( )
wikiro | Jun 7, 2009 | 1 vote
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Series (with order)
Canonical Title
Original publication date
People/Characters
Important places
Important events
Awards and honors
Epigraph
Dedication
First words
Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the bank, and of having nothing to do; once or twice she had peeped into the book her sister was reading, but it had no pictures or conversation in it, "and what is the use of a book," thought Alice, "without pictures or conversations?"
Quotations
"In that direction," the Cat said, waving its right paw round, "lives a Hatter; and in that direction," waving the other paw, "lives a March Hare. Visit either you like; they're both mad."
"I only wish I had such eyes," the King remarked in a fretful tone. "To be able to see Nobody! And at this distance too! Why, it's as much as I can do to see real people, by this light!"
Off with his head!
I'm very brave, generally . . . only today I happen to have a headache.
Last words
Disambiguation notice
This is a combined edition of "Alice's adventures in wonderland" and "Through the looking-glass and what Alice found there". Please don't combine with a copy of only one of these.
Publisher's editors
Blurbers
Book description

Amazon.com (ISBN 0451523202, Paperback)

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

(retrieved from Amazon Fri, 24 Apr 2009 07:58:16 -0400)

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