Common Reading 2020: Lewis Carroll

Lewis Carroll was an English author, photographer, inventor, mathematician, and Anglican deacon, best known for his children’s book Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, in which he penned the famous lines: “‘Curiouser and curiouser!’ cried Alice (she was so much surprised, that for the moment she quite forgot how to speak good English).” 

1. Would you have drunk from the bottle if you were in Alice's place? Have you ever given in to your curiosity without thinking through all the consequences in a similar way?

2. How has your experience coming to college felt like falling "down the rabbit hole"?

3. How is Carroll's prose similar and different from stories you read now?

1. Have students write a short story (real or fiction) about a time when they gave in to their curiosity.

2. In partners, compare the character of Alice to yourself, your partner, and another fictional character. Who is she most like?

Alice in Wonderland Full Text

Trivia about Alice in Wonderland

"Why is a raven like a writing desk?"

“Enquiries have been so often addressed to me, as to whether any answer to the Hatter’s Riddle can be imagined, that I may as well put on record here what seems to me to be a fairly appropriate answer, viz: “Because it can produce a few notes, tho they are very flat; and it is nevar put with the wrong end in front!” This, however, is merely an afterthought; the Riddle as originally invented, had no answer at all.” Lewis Carroll