Name: Thrive! NCHE Homeschool Conference
Start: 2025-05-22T00:00:00-05:00
End: 2025-05-24T23:59:59-05:00
Location: Winston-Salem, NC

Tagged: Alice in Wonderland, literature, Skipping a recommended book

This topic has 17 replies, 12 voices, and was last updated 12 years, 11 months ago by missingtheshire.

Viewing 15 posts - 1 through 15 (of 18 total)

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May 31, 2012 at 12:32 am
eawerner
Participant
dd5 is just NOT into this book. I can understand why. It’s recommended for first year but it just seems to be written in a style that doesn’t flow like a normal story would. I think it’s difficult for her to understand what it going on with all of the internal dialoge Alice has with herself. At what point do you just opt for a different book? Or do you always finish no matter what?
May 31, 2012 at 12:37 am
sheraz
Participant
There are too many wonderful choices out there to stress over one that you are not enjoying… You are not the first I have seen not enjoy AIW, ditch it and go on with joy! =)
May 31, 2012 at 12:40 am
eawerner
Participant
Thanks!
May 31, 2012 at 3:49 am
LindseyD
Participant
We tried Alice in our first year of homeschooling, and made it all the way to chapter 3. We just couldn’t get into either. No worries! Try Pooh or Trumpet of the Swan. Those are wonderful!
May 31, 2012 at 11:04 am
simple home
Member
That is the one book that my kids disliked. Don’t feel bad moving on. If your kids are interested later, you could just do an audio recording.
On a side note, after reading through the book, my dd who was about 7 at that time told me she “FEELS LIKE I AM IN THAT HOLE AND CANNOT GET OUT!” LOL!
It is well written, but strangely so. 🙂
May 31, 2012 at 12:55 pm
artcmomto3
Participant
I agree. Age 5 is young for this book. I am reading this to DD7, actually reading the last chapter today. It is the last book we chose for the year, and I’m glad we saved it for the end of the year due to how the book reads. We are enjoying it. I would not expect my DS5 to listen to it. I think he did listen to one chapter one time, but that was all.
I suggest selecting books from the Early Years Guide. We are enjoying the Little House books for family read aloud at bedtime. I include both DD7 and DS5. We also enjoyed Raggedy Ann and Andy earlier this year.
BTW, for Alice in Wonderland, I found a beautiful copy at the library with wonderful pictures. I think this has helped DD to enjoy it more.
http://www.amazon.com/Adventures-Wonderland-Sterling-Illustrated-Classics/dp/1402768354
The look inside feature does not show the illustrations, but a number of them resemble the cover. Some have more color to them.
June 1, 2012 at 1:52 am
Christine Kaiser
Participant
DD 7 is just reading the book and she likes it. I would agree that 5 is probably too young. Remember CM recommend starting formal school at around 7 so first year would mean it’s fit for a 7 y/o ;).
Blessings Christine
June 1, 2012 at 2:14 am
eawerner
Participant
Thank you for all the responses! Dh has actually read the entire Little House series with dd already and she loved it. We’ll just try the other ones listed for this year and see how they go.
June 1, 2012 at 2:19 am
eawerner
Participant
Ok, I just went back to check the literature list for year 1 and AiW is listed for year 2. I KNOW it was in year one because I am OCD in my planning and have a printout of the webpage in my planning binder. (did I just admit to that? lol)
Seriously though, all the titles are switched for all the years! When did that happen?
June 1, 2012 at 2:46 am
thepinkballerina
Participant
Alice in Wonderland is NOT my style of book. We tried reading it as well but did finish because we were “curious” as to how it ended. Waste of time, IMHO. I read it was written for drug users or while on LSD but that may be false information?? I think there was info at the beginning of the book that it was written by a preacher. There are WAY better books out there.
Tara
June 1, 2012 at 3:12 am
artcmomto3
Participant
You are right about the change in literature for particular years! We read Charlotte’s Web this year b/c it was rec’d for grade 1. Some of the books have been moved to different years, and new books are listed that were not before. I had not seen this change until now.
June 1, 2012 at 3:17 am
Sonya Shafer
Moderator
eawerner, I recently did a bit of shuffling and revising to the Literature chart. I’m sorry I didn’t post a notice about it. I meant to, but even now I forget which city I was in at the time.
I made the changes because I wanted to get away from a grade-by-grade list and try to make it more of a grouping list. So now you’ll see Modules listed on the left and grade ranges listed on the right. I hope it helps relieve some stress and encourages the freedom to pick and choose from the suggestions and use what will best fit your family.
June 1, 2012 at 4:26 am
morgrace
Participant
It really simplifed my choices for literature for next year. As much as I love literature usually spin my wheels when I’m trying to choose which books and have a hard time deciding! The change from listing books by indvidual grades to listing books by groups (young/middle/older) really helped me! I can look at the list and know that when my children are younger we’ll get through the list sometime during those years and I can pick a module to fit everybody rather than being concered that someone is going to miss out on a particular title because they are too young/too old when a sibling is in grade xyz…. If module 2 doesn’t fit great for this year we can do module 3 or module 1 and I’ve not missed anything or gone out of order!
I re-printed out the list (I have one too ) and drew a dark line to divide the list into thirds, to better see it visually. I also added a couple, like Caddie Woodlawn, to my printout. Anyway, it made it so much easier for me to figure out which books to read when and have a better plan for when to add other books. Instead of mentally remembering a book, now Caddie’s on paper, and I won’t forget. I also thought the books had a nice balance for each module and since we get into ruts, reading the same types of books (animals is our current one) it’s helped me to swap out one or two titles for something similar (so next year I switched two books which we already read in module 1: Paddington for Pooh; Freddy Goes to Fla for Mr. Poppers Penguins) while leaving the rest alone, knowing that in the fall the books will fit the second grader and the five year old. Reading ruts begone!
Thanks Sonya! For the first time chosing literature for my whole family was easy! I hope that a notice is posted about it so everyone know about the change, I think it’s brillant!
PS I also noticed that some of the titles for the older age group are now listed in the History/Bible/Geo modules instead. Kidnapped I think was one?
June 1, 2012 at 11:13 am
simple home
Member
Pinkballerina, I read that the author made up and told this story while journeying with a friend’s children ( by boat I think? ). And it was published shortly after. Anyway, don’t know the facts but I would hope it’s not drug induced writing. 🙂
June 1, 2012 at 1:32 pm
Bookworm
Participant
The author of Alice in Wonderland was an opium user. This was pretty common in the Victorian era. We think of “drug users” now as street people/junkies, but many nineteenth-century authors used opium. Sameul Taylor Coleridge is another. It’s still not good or right, but it’s a different environment–it was not illegal at the time, there was not so much of a moral stigma. Simple Home is correct, however, in that the stories were told to a friend’s child first. He was often in poor health, this may explain why he might have used opium. He was actually a mathemetician, and there are two camps of scholars–one group thinks he was actually a pedophile, and the other doesn’t.