Book review: Alice in Wonderland

I mentioned before that I was reading aloud to the girls Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass.  Well, we finished them a few days ago.

I'm pretty sure I read the first book to Mulan several years ago when we were still living in China, but she didn't remember much of it.

We were motivated to read them because Mulan and Miya's ballet production this year is inspired by Carroll's books.  (Mulan is in three dances -- the Mock Turtle in the Mad Hatter's Tea Party, part of the Caterpillar, and a Card.  Miya is also in three dances -- the Sea of Tears, a guest at the Mad Hatter's Tea Party, and a Chef.)

Carroll's famous books are, at one and the same time, both a simple story of a Miya-aged girl dreaming about meeting up with some funny/crazy people and also a complicated social commentary.  We didn't get into discussing the social commentary stuff much, but the girls enjoyed the crazy humour of Alice's adventures.  They also really enjoyed connecting it with their dances.

Carroll includes some really interesting poems/songs in the books, and we did the typical school-ish activity with Jabberwocky.  You probably know what I am referring to:

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

One night when Mulan was in bed (and Miya was already asleep) we got to chatting about what it meant.  She had some ideas, and we started thinking about how different people might see it differently.  So, we decided that all four of us (Mulan, Miya, Mama and me) should secretly write down on a piece of paper what we think it means, and then "present" our interpretation to each other and compare.

Well, we did just that the next day.  Independently, Mulan did a poster-style analysis of the poem, complete with pictures, "biological/geographical information" and "history" of how researchers learnt about the animals and environment.

It really is interesting that, unschool style, Mulan did something that would not look out of place on a classroom wall.

I mentioned what we had done to Gugu, and the cousins all did the same thing.  We plan to meet up and compare everyone's interpretations, but so far it is hard to find a time when everyone is available and in one place (maybe next week at Nainai's birthday party.)

We are now a couple of chapters into reading aloud Harry Potter number 3.  (I read aloud 1 and 2 earlier this year.)