Nov. 6, 2015
Afternoon tea with Alice and friends
A pair of glowing yellow eyes, large and bright, blink open and peer down from the darkness of the leafy branches of a tree; a long, wide, toothy grin follows. Soon, stripes across the back and tail begin to appear; the animal comes into full form and, as if poised to pounce, looks at the small, young girl in the blue pinafore below him, and responds to her question:
鈥淲ould you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?鈥
鈥淭hat depends a good deal on where you want to get to.鈥
鈥淚 don't much care where.鈥
鈥 Then it doesn't much matter which way you go.鈥
鈥淪o long as I get somewhere.鈥
鈥淥h, you're sure to do that, if only you walk long enough.鈥
This exchange is one of many that takes place between the girl 鈥 Alice 鈥 and the Cheshire Cat, a questionable character she meets after falling down a rabbit hole. And it鈥檚 just one small part of the journey she undertakes in Lewis Carroll鈥檚 Alice鈥檚 Adventures in Wonderland.
The book was written 150 years ago but has endured the test of time. And Tammy Flanders believes she knows why.
鈥淚 think the appeal is the total absurdity of the characters and situations that Alice encounters and how with a laugh and a quip she just keeps on going,鈥 says Flanders, a library co-ordinator in the
鈥淭his is a fun fantasy without tons of moralizing, though certainly if you start deconstructing it, there鈥檚 a lot to work with too.
鈥淚t鈥檚 a story that just works on many levels.鈥
The Doucette, part of the university鈥檚 , is housed in the Education Classroom Block and supports (BEd) students through its collections, information services, and workshops. That said, any student is welcome to spend time in the Doucette.
Suffice to say that if someone鈥檚 looking for a copy of the iconic Carroll work on campus, the Doucette is the place to find it.
Flanders decided to mark the book鈥檚 milestone with a celebration for students and staff and connected with her colleagues in the Doucette to put together a celebration of all things Alice in Wonderland.
They brought in fancy cups and saucers and made sweet and savoury morsels, and treated everyone who dropped by to 鈥 what else? A tea party, of course.
And as far as anyone could tell, no one lost their heads.