Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

To me, Alice’s Adventures has always been a movie, I knew that it was based on a book of course, but I never made myself read it. That’s what happens, when there is a movie of a book, you never bother to read it. But eventually I did and I must say I really enjoyed it.  It’s a very unusual world, full of characters that are unique in their own way, which makes the story very appealing for the readers. First thing that you notice when you read the book is Alice’s curiosity, which got her ended up in that hole in the first place. It reminds me the saying “curiosity killed the cat.” Alice’s behavior can be easily related to that proverb. I think writer had aimed to give a lesson while creating the character. Alice is not a very wise girl either, she never learns from her lessons and I remember getting frustrated while I was reading the parts concerning that side of Alice.

I would say the book is for children of age 5-10, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that adults cannot enjoy it. I did. Plus, it’s an imaginary world, and a lot of emotions are embedded in this story, like other stories. I mean my mother still watches cartoons, so you can’t really say that things we call ‘for children’ do not appeal to older ages. There’s always an idea or a lesson that you can learn from even a children’s book. I am a materialist person, so I cannot deny the fact that I felt relieved when I found out the whole story was actually a dream. However, I like the idea of the existence of a ‘Wonderland’. A place that is completely different from the world we know. It’d be great to just escape there when we get overwhelmed. Although in Alice’s case she was not very lucky being there, her journey was full of misfortunities but that was partially her fault.

After having the discussions in the classroom with other books, I can say that I easily relate Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland to Wizard of Oz, Peter Pan and Secret Garden since they all are imaginary worlds. One thing I came to realize after we had our discussion in the classroom was the fact that adults did not take place very often in these books. I added Peter Pan to my reading list because I liked the idea refusing to age. Well, not the idea of refusing, but not aging at all. The reason for that I think is because I myself am terrified getting old. It would be really fun to read the attempts of Peter Pan trying to avoid aging. I also liked the theme of Secret Garden, I will certainly read that book when I get a chance. We see the idea of “noble savage” in this book, which indicates that children do not have to go to school to learn, if they want to learn, only thing they have to do is look around, because they learn from the surroundings. The book is all about healing power of the nature. Nature is the ultimate element, because we live in it.

All in all, I can easily say that themes of the first week’s books speak to me. I enjoyed listening the discussions happened in the class, and I just love the children mind. Because I think we all are, me especially, still chilren deep down inside, but we shouldn’t try to ignore it, we should embrace it, because that’s what keeps us fresh and alive.