Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

Alice’s curiosity, politeness, openness and resilience offer a useful focus, alongside the contrast between her attempts to reason and the surrounding characters’ changing rules and behaviour.

Expect repeated changes of size, strange creatures, a smoking caterpillar, chaotic situations, shouted execution threats, thrown dishes and language that may feel obscure or nonsensical.

If Wonderland’s rules keep changing, what helps Alice continue? Which jokes, riddles or poems seem playful, and which might need explaining? Does the ending clarify how to understand the experience?

Read aloud in short sections, pause to unpack unfamiliar Victorian wording, and invite interpretations rather than forcing a single explanation. Compare the literal action with the sound and shape of the language.