Happy Birthday to you!

I have one of those daily calendars with fun little facts on each day by my bed, which I got for Christmas. It is called The Left-Hander's Calendar and has facts about famous lefties and famous left hander's birthdays. Today, my handy dandy calendar informed me that it is the birthday of Lewis Carroll (his 179th to be exact), author of The Adventures of Alice in Wonderland and other books such as Through the Looking Glass, And What Alice Found There. Alice in Wonderland is one book that has thrilled me and terrified me my whole life. The scenes that Lewis Carroll creates are so vivid and strange, I can't help but get the chills when I read them. But Alice's story is one of childhood imagination, retold through the words of an adult. Today in class we were talking about how an author creates characters and tells stories through them. Clearly, shrinking to a size smaller than a mouse and being swept up in a river of your own tears is fantastical and not a big T truth DocOc has been talking about all year, but a broader, little t truth can be drawn from the chimerical pages of Carroll's writing. Carroll is giving his truth about imagination, the worlds we go to when day dreaming like Alice (or tripping like he was) and the glories and dangers of dreaming your life away (and drug use). Alice visits the fun side of dreaming at the Mad Tea Party, and the dangerous side when she meets the testy Queen of Hearts. This story, like the ones we've read in class, have a very important little t truth from the author, being told through a character of his design.