From: Kathleen Horning <horning>
Date: Tue, 03 Oct 2000 10:34:27 -0500

My own childhood memory of Alice is of my father reading it aloud to us in the evenings after dinner and before bedtime. He was actually reading it aloud to my older brother and sister who were 10 and 8, and as the baby of the family at age 4, I felt lucky to be allowed to listen in, too. We had an old cloth bound edition with the Tenniel illustrations. At some point earlier in the book's life, a dog had chewed the lower right corner of the book.

My favorite part of the book was the Mouse's Tale, the concrete poem shaped like a mouse's tail that appears in Chapter 3. When my brother and sister were in school, I used to find that particular page in the book and pore over it. I couldn't read yet, but I *felt* like I was reading when I looked at it. I spent much more time looking at that poem than I did at Tenniel's illustrations (which I also enjoyed looking at on my own). Consequently the mouse became an extremely important character in my mind. I actually thought he was the one who had gnawed on the corner of the book.

Kathleen T. Horning (horning at education.wisc.edu) Cooperative Children's Book Center University of Wisconsin-School of Education 4290 Helen C. White Hall 600 North Park St. Madison, WI 53706 608&3930 FAX: 608&2I33
Received on Tue 03 Oct 2000 10:34:27 AM CDT