The March Hare and Friends

Let me tell you a story about stories (including prompt)

Alice at the Mad Hatter’s tea party, Arthur Rackham ‘Alice in Wonderland’ (Lewis Carroll)

Today, in fact this month, I would like to talk about children’s literature.
Obviously the descriptor for this publication draws upon ‘Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland’, which always was and always will be one of my absolute favourites — but there were so many more.

I spent a lot of time taking refuge in our local library as a child and teen in the 1970s and ’80s. That place remains one of my clearest, as well as dearest, memories. Close my eyes, and I swear I can smell it still.

I would bury myself into those rows of shelves, revelling in the potential of thousands of books just waiting to be read, pulling one after the other into my hands to see what they were about, gradually wittling down my choices to a stack of half a dozen.

Checking them out, I would meander into the park across the way if it was fine, one book between my hands, already beginning to flip through the first pages, the rest tucked securely into my bag. If the weather wasn’t too good, I would go through the park anyway, just to take a slightly longer route, and to not have to worry about cars on the road as I would be reading as I walked along.