Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

It feels right to start this series with the book that made me love reading, housed my imagination, and changed my life. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland was a book that I consistently checked out of my elementary school library. To this day, literary nonsense is one of my favorite teaching days in my Children’s Literature course and my spare bedroom proves my ongoing love for this classic. 

Even though I wasn’t able to understand everything that I was reading when I first encountered this book, the characters left an impression. They helped me make sense of my world–providing the comfort I was searching for elsewhere. I saw my dad in the white rabbit, my mom in the Cheshire cat, and my beloved grandma in the Mad Hatter. As a child, it taught me that you won't always understand the world—and that's okay. 

I highly suggest rereading books that you love. As an adult, the lesson hit differently: Curiosity is more valuable than certainty. 

Children often read looking for answers. Adults tend to do the same. But perhaps the best books teach us something else entirely—that a life filled with questions isn't something to outgrow. It's something to protect.

Maybe that's the real wonderland.