A Real Hoot

By Annette Rey

Who is thinking of November when it’s just September? Writers are. Good literature doesn’t have a “read-by” date. This coming November 26^th is the 152^nd anniversary of the publication of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Yay! Hooray!

It might be time to get the old tomes out and read them again. You don’t have to be a child to appreciate good story telling. And what a day we live in to escape to a Wonderland, huh?

At http://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/?s=alice+in+wonderland+anniversary you can take a short quiz and see which character you most relate with. I turned out to be Alice when I’d rather have been the Cheshire Cat, sort of here now and then fade away. I enjoy my time “under the rock”, hiding away and writing to my heart’s content.

At http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/alice-wonderland-150th-anniversary-lewis-carrolls-original-manuscript/story?id=35431905 you can actually visualize pages of the original manuscript complete with endearing drawings! I suggest you see them. I didn’t know Lewis Carroll was a pen name. His given name was Charles Lutwidge Dodgson and though his pen name is familiar to my ear, I prefer his real name; it seems more musical.

On the 150^th anniversary, Royal Mail (in England) produced colorful and delightful stamps to commemorate the event. At http://shop.royalmail.com/alices-adventures-in-wonderland-pins-buy-all-5-and-save-10/invt/20150128 you can purchase pins with the images of the stamps on them. The problem is, they do not indicate the size of these pins. Are they small and delicate or large and weighty? The price for all five (the conversion from pounds sterling to dollars) is $34.46. They can also be purchased individually, at $7.66 each. I didn’t click through to see shipping charges. You may consider this a nice gift for yourself or the child you are inspiring to read.

So while you are having your Thanksgiving meal this year, be thankful for the contributions writers have given us to enrich our lives.

And always strive to be one of them.