4th July Alice Anniversary

The fourth of July marks the anniversary of the day in 1862 when Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll)  and the Reverend Robinson Duckworth rowed in a boat up the Isis River with the three young daughters of Henry Liddell, the Vice-Chancellor of Oxford University. The middle daughter was ten year old Alice. During the journey Dodgson told the girls a story that featured a girl named Alice who goes looking for adventure. The next day he started writing the story down.  Several versions and trips later on 26th November, 1864 Dodgson gave a handwritten manuscript to Alice  as a Christmas present. Then in 1865 it was published as Alice's Adventures in Wonderland with illustrations by John Tenniel, so this year marks its 150 anniversary.

The story has become more popular with age as its fantasy world of peculiar anthropomorphic creatures, its structure and narrative course have undertaken much analysis and literary criticism and have thus its characters and imagery have influenced popular culture and literature. There are hundreds of versions available to children and adults. They range from preschool versions such as the board book by Jennifer Adams and Alison Oliver, through many of the abridged versions by publishers such as Usborne and Ladybird, picture book versions such as the one by Eric Puybaret,  beautifully illustrated versions by renowned illustrators such as Antony Browne, Emma Chichester Clark, Lizbeth Zwerger, Helen Oxenbury and Robert Ingpen right through to annotated versions such as Elucidating Alice for adults and spoofs such as Fifty Shades of Alice. It has inspired musicals, films, stage productions, sculptures, artworks and gardens.

I have collected all the versions in the library and put together a celebratory display.

29th November Louisa May Alcott (1832 - 1888) C.S.Lewis (1898 - 1963) Jane Tanner (1946) Jackie French (1953) Adrian Reynolds (1963)

What a lot of birthdays! The first two, Louisa May Alcott and C.S. (Clive Staples) Lewis need very little introduction and their classics, Little Women and the Narnia series of books were written for children older than those I teach, even though they know of them from movies, so I do not intend to write about them.

Jane Tanner is an Australian illustrator who lives in Melbourne and was a secondary school art teacher before becoming a fulltime illustrator. Each of her illustrations looks like a painting that could be framed and as such her illustrations are meticulous. She rarely does more than a book every year or so. She has said, "I've always been fascinated by the changes in mood created by the play of light in a particular place and time..." and this can beseen clearly in her Children's Book Council Picture Book of the Year winner Drac and the Gremlin which is written by Allan Baillie. There's a Sea in My Bedroom is another popular book that Jane illustrated.

Jackie French is also Australian. She is an author and far more prolific than Jane Tanner. She writes for a broad age group, doing humorous picture books, short stories, historical novels for young adults, historical non fiction and even gardening books. Her website tells you all about her and her myriad of books. For my children it is hard to go past her Shaggy Gully Books, in particular Diary of a Wombat. This book with its very minimal text amuses readers of all ages. And her Wacky Families series amuses my good Year 2 readers. They like to work their way through the lot once they been hooked with the first one, usually My Auntie Chook the Vampire Chicken.

Adrian Reynolds is the British illustrator responsible for Harry and the Dinosaurs with the author Ian Whybrow. Their website is amazing. It provides you with all sorts of reading record proformas, information for parents who are reluctant to read to their children, and things to use in the classroom. Of course Adrian has illustrated other books as well. A favourite in the library is Who's in the Loo? by Jeanne Willis, but as well as other Jeanne Willis books , he has done Michael Rosen's books about Bear and books for Jonathan Emmett.