Words slide into the English language without our really thinking about where they come from. One Fun Day with Lewis Carroll points out, while telling the story of the author’s life, that sometimes those words are invented by individuals.
The book starts in Carroll’s childhood and shows him playing with and amusing his younger siblings. When he grows, he continues amusing the children of friends. The book culminates with the story of the composition of Alice in Wonderland–started on a lazy day of rowing to amuse two young girls.
I loved how the text used Carroll’s invented words and highlighted them by printing them in color in bigger font. The back of the book includes a handy glossary, color-coded according to the book that the word first appeared in. The book remided me a lot of Will’s Words: How Shakespeare Changed the Way you Talk, and I think the two of them would make a fine pairing.
The art in this book is exuberant and fantastical–perfect for the biography of Alice’s creator! The colors are lush and the shapes fascinating. The center of the book is a wordless spread depicting the story Carroll is inventing in the rowboat.
A fun book about the fun of language!
One Fun Day with Lewis Carroll: A Celebration of Wordplay and a Girl Named Alice, by Kathleen Krull, ilustratued by Julia Sarda. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt: 2018.
Alyson Beecher hosts the Nonfiction Picture Book Challenge at kidlitfrenzy.com. Visit there for more great nonfiction picture books!
I adore this book, and you’ve highlighted the fun parts, Annette, like Kathleen Krull using Carroll’s words in her text. It’s a delight to read, and certainly “see”!
I love this book – and weren’t the end pages so fun? I haven’t used it with young readers yet, but I’m hoping they will fall in love with it too!