From: steven engelfried <stevene>
Date: Thu, 19 Oct 2000 09:51:16 -0700

Monica's idea of reading from the annotated version is excellent. I could see how it would really make for a different kind of reading experience. As I read the book to my kids, there were clearly three kinds of humor: The kind where we all got the joke; the kind where I got the joke and explained it to the kids; and the kind where we all knew there must be a joke in there somewhere but none of us had the proper references. The middle kind were the most interesting. We had great fun with the Mock Turtle's description of his school courses, for example. I had to prompt them to figure out that
"Reeling and Writhing" was a play upon "Reading and Writing." Once they understood what was going on, though, they could figure out many of the others (Ambition and Distraction, Seography for Geography). The ones they couldn't ("Stretching and Fainting in Coils" = "Sketching and Painting in Oils" (that one took me a while too)), they still thought were funny after I explained it. One of the tests I use when reading to my kids is, if I have to stop too often to explain things, then we save the book for a future date. In this case, it wasn't that distracting. Partly, I think, because I often didn't know the context myself to explain to them. Both agreed, after we'd finished, that there were some parts that didn't especially make sense, but as my son said, "that sort of went with the story," so it didn't bother them.

- Steven Engelfried, Young Adult Librarian
  Deschutes Public Library System
  545 NW Wall Street Bend, OR 97701
  ph: 541a7p72 fax: 54189)82
  e-mail: stevene at dpls.lib.or.us
Received on Thu 19 Oct 2000 11:51:16 AM CDT