One Fun Day with Lewis Carroll: A Celebration of Wordplay and a Girl Named Alice by Kathleen Krull, illustrated by Julia Sarda. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2018. 32 pages.
One Fun Day is not exactly a traditional biography or a picture book biography of the famous author and mathematician Charles Lutwidge Dodgson as it is a celebration of his life, his storytelling, and his way and play with words. Nevertheless, there is two page spread of text and pictures at the back of the book that tells “more about Lewis Carroll’s journey to the Alice books” as well as a glossary of “words and ideas invented or adapted by Lewis Carroll.”
The main part of the book is a romp through the life, words, and ideas of Mr. Carroll. The book talks about Carroll’s enduring childhood and gives an idea of what a day with Lewis Carroll might have been like. The illustrations are a delight, including a two-page spread of Alice chasing the White Rabbit through Wonderland. There are also numerous pictures of Lewis playing and story-telling with his young friends, and the text incorporates many of the words and phrases that Lewis Carroll originated: chortles, uffish, slithy, uglification, and un-birthday, to name a few.
The day and the book both end with Lewis rich, famous, and busy writing stories: “Lewis Carroll, the man who never forgot how to play, had turned a day of fun into stories that were fabulous and joyous—as he would say, frabjous.”
I wrote in another post about my take on modern-day accusations against Lewis Carroll that I find to be unsupported, revisionist, and unfair. You can check out that post and the links there if you’re interested. But I would suggest that you just enjoy Mr. Carroll on his own terms as he and his work are presented in One Fun Day with Lewis Carroll. This picture book would be a wonderful introduction to a read-aloud of Alice in Wonderland, a book that I love but I find to be somewhat polarizing. Some love it as much as I do; others just can’t understand it or hate it. At least you should try reading it if you haven’t. Alice is quite the adventure. And wordplay is the essence of poetry.
More Lewis Carroll:
Many Happy Returns:January 27th
Lewis Carroll’s Christmas Greeting
If you are interested in purchasing ($5.00) a curated list of favorite picture book biographies with over 300 picture books about all sorts of different people, email me at sherryDOTpray4youATgmailDOTcom. I’m highlighting picture book biographies in March. What is your favorite picture book about a real person?