ALICE IN WONDERLAND

           i recently  went on a trip to Chicago, and on the way back i read Alice in Wonderland on a friends ipod touch. For those of you who have seen the movies, i will tell you that they are both wrong. This because, the book makes no sense at all.
           In  the beginning, Alice is sitting with her sister outside, when she see's a white rabbit in a waste coat with a pocket watch race past her, muttering to itself. She fallows it and falls down a rather peculiar rabbit hole, with shelves filled with orange marmalade and maps and such. She lands in a room with doors all around, put all of them are locked. She see's a glass table with a key on it. The key doesn't fit any doors, Until she finds a curtain with a very small door behind it. She is not tall enough to go through the door so she goes back to the table and finds a bottle labeled DRINK ME. Of coarse she drinks it and she grows smaller. Now she can fit threw the door, but she left the key on the table and now she can't reach it.
          Then she finds a glass box on the ground with a small cake labeled EAT ME. So she eats it a grows tall enough to reach the key. But now she is back were she started and can't fit threw the door.
          She starts to cry and back a pool on the floor. She finds a fan and starts fanning herself with it. The fan makes her grow smaller and she falls into her pool of tears. She meets a mouse in the pool and once they are to shore, she meets quite a number of creatures. They have a race, to dry of.
          In the book, lots of strange things happen, she meets a Cheshire cat that can disappear, a mad hatter, a hair, a door mouse. She plays crochet with the queen of hearts with flamingoes as mallets and hedgehogs as the crochet balls. She is accused of stealing the Queen of hearts tarts. She meets a Duchess with a baby that turns into a pig. And she meets the mock turtle, who used to be a real turtle but isn't anymore, that sings. She meets a large blue caterpillar that smokes.
        The book is chalk-full of puns and poems. My absolute favorite part of the book is when the mock turtle sings the Lobster Quadrille. Here it is...

THE LOBSTER QUADRILLE


"Will you walk a little faster?", said the whiting to the snail
"There's a porpoise close behind us and he's treading on my tail"
see how eagerly the lobsters and the turtles all advance
they are waiting on a shingle, won't you come and join the dance?

will you, won't you, will you, won't you
will you join the dance?
will you, won't you, will you, won't you
won't you join the dance?

You can really have no notion how delightful it will be
When they take us up and throw us with the lobsters out to sea
But the snail replied, "Too far, too far", and gave a look askance
Said he thanked the whiting kindly but he would not join the dance

Would not, could not, would not, could not
Would not join the dance
Would not, could not, would not, could not
Would not join the dance

"What matters it how far we go?", his scaly friends replied
"There is another shore you know upon the other side"
The further off from England, the nearer is to France
Then turn not pale, beloved snail but come and join the dance

Will you, won't you, will you, won't you
Will you come and join the dance?
Will you, won't you, will you, won't you
won't you come and join the dance?

           I also like it when the Cheshire cat says "Were all mad here." and when Alice says, "I wish i could shut up like a telescope! I think i could if i only new how to begin." and "It would be nice if things made sense for a change."
          I recommend this book to everyone and also the second one ALICE THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS. Both are highly imaginative. curiouser and curiouser.

BITTERSWEET

            This was a really good book, and it was not about supernatural being's of any kind. It is called Bittersweet by Drew Lamm.  It is about a girl named Taylor Rose. She is usually an artist, but ever since her grandma was put in a nursing home after a stroke, Taylor doesn't really feel like drawing. She loved 'Gramms', who lived life to the fullest and was always doing crazy things. Now her grandma just sits around and stares out the window, talking to people who aren't there. Taylor starts not caring. The only thing that she can paint are muddy puddles of color.
          Her best friend Ebbie goes away for the summer to her grandmothers house in canada and leaves her stuck. The only person she has to talk to are her dad, who is to wrapped up in his own world to even think about her, and Bears, a long-time child hood friend that she used to be really close to. Then theres Mike, who has been forever asking her out , but she never takes him seriously. After he is hired by her dad to work on the porch, she tries to get to know him better. During the summer, as her grandma dives farther away from reality, Taylor gets to know Mike better. And she rekindles her relationship with Bears. She is still trying to draw, but can't think of anything.
         On day she meets Mr, Mathews, a friend of Gramms. He shows her that she should try to remember Gramms like she was, not how she is, because it really isn't her any more. Taylor starts talking to her dad, and he actually understands how she feels. They by groceries for the first time in forever, and Taylor almost feels like she has her drawing back. Then she runs into Bears in a closet at the nursing home, kissing some one. And she doesn't trust him any more. She goes to Mike instead. She wants to get her drawing back so he offers to pose for her. He asks her how models usually pose, and since she wants to throw him for a loop, she says "Nude."
          Somehow he ends up posing naked and things take a turn for the worst and her starts kissing her. She gets away and tells him to leave her alone. She forgives Bears and draws a mural on his driveway in the middle of the night that says "i'm sorry." She is so happy to have her drawing back. In the morning it starts to rain and he see's it before it washes away. Taylor is outside washing her hair in the rain, and he coms over to say that he's sorry too, blah blah blah, then they kiss.

           She is so happy she wants to tell grams about it, so when it stops raining she heads over to the nursing home. On her way there she meets her old friend Mindy, who tells her that grams died. Taylor remembers when her mother died and she and Gramms went up to the hill and celebrated her life. So Taylor goes up to the hill and Celebrates Gramms life. She feels that that is what her Gramms would have wanted.
            I highly recommend this book. It is so quirky and it is filled up with poems and stuff. It makes it really fun to read.