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Title: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, Harry Rountree ISBN: 0-517-21865-8 Publisher: Derrydale Pub. Date: August, 1901 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $15.99

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Average Customer Rating: 4 (1 review)

Rating: 4
Summary: A "Nursery" Book
Comment: It is getting harder and harder for people to remember what a fresh breath of air Lewis Carroll's Alice stories must have been in stuffy Victorian nurseries. (After all, today's culture has replaced the romantic nursery with the plastic daycare.) In those days, standard fare for children were characters who earned "sweetmeats" for memorizing a psalm or some other school lesson, who never got dirty without being punished, who were generally good (albeit boring) role models for young people who were to be seen, but not heard.

Then, one "golden afternoon," an eccentric, avuncular, dear man told a group of children a story about a girl who tumbled down a rabbit hole and found herself in a world called Wonderland. I can picture the delight on the listeners' faces at each strange new twist--be it a talking animal that is as mad as they come . . . or an admittedly hilarious pun.

Take the Mock Turtle, who tells Alice of a school master he and his classmates called Tortoise. Since this teacher was a turtle, why was he called "Tortoise," Alice wanted to know. The Mock Turtle replied, "We called him Tortoise because he taught us."

Admittedly, the title character is still very Victorian. (I would say, hopelessly wishywashy.) That she exhibits only healthy curiosity, not outright astonishment, at the fact that a world like Wonderland can exist is a hint of what kind of children will enjoy this book. These ideal readers are those who see no difference between the mad world around them and the mad world down a rabbit hole. (Once they start to see, and to expect, rhyme and reason in what they read, it is time for J.M. Barrie's "Peter Pan".)

As for you adults, don't worry about the plot, because there are several, all of them wiggly, that keep the story going. Don't look for much substance either. Unlike other fantasy worlds, Wonderland is a place where anything goes and so everything does go. Go mad, that is.

Despite this _and_ the fact that children are no longer confined by Victorian standards, "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" remains popular and in print. This may have something to do with Carroll's "golden afternoon" of storytelling (honored with its inclusion in the lyrics of a Disney song). I personally consider it an apt symbolism of the truth that the _place_ called Wonderland just happens to be hidden somewhere in the _time_ called childhood. How fortunate are those who have known that golden afternoon and all its wonders, and who remember how to return!