1) Little Women 2) Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

1) Little Women (including Good Wives) by Louisa May Alcott


 
 I was originally read this by my mum, and have  read it a couple of times since, but I'm now re-reading it as it's on my reading list for next year's course "The Girl in the Book" (TGITB) at my uni. I have to say that even though I know the story well, I still find it very touching and I love the old-fashioned simplicity of the girls' lives, although I find their mother rather extreme in her wish to keep them from thinking romantic thoughts while they're teenagers. The idea that it's "one's duty" to happily give up one's sons or husband to the war is also hard for me to swallow, but then I'm lucky enough to live in the UK at a time of peace, so I can't really empathise. 


I was a little miffed, thinking that I had finished it, to find out that the version on the reading list includes "Good Wives" (the second book of the series) as part two, but I ended up enjoying re-reading this second part of the story, in which we get to see a different, more mature side to the girls, as they marry and move out of their childhood home. I feel like some of Mrs March's advice for her daughters is still very much relevant today, such as not neglecting your husband for you children and taking care to preserve tenderness in a marriage after the initial honey-moon period. Good advice, even if it may be hard to follow.


2) Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carol

 
This was another book that I've re-read due to it being on my reading list for TGITB. I've always found Alice to be a very comic character, and her naivete is really quite charming in its ridiculousness; "It was all very well to say 'Drink me,' but the wise little Alice was not going to do THAT in a hurry. 'No, I'll look first,' she said, 'and see whether it's marked "poison" or not' ". 

The whole book is rather fun, with its smorgasbord of zany characters; indeed it gets "curiouser and curiouser" as it goes on, as Alice changes size, meets anthropomorphised animals and playing cards, and tries to play croquet with a flamingo for a mallet and a hedgehog for a ball. I thoroughly enjoyed re-reading it, and recommend it, for those who never read it as a  child it's still very enjoyable as an adult, and will only take an hour or two, as it's very short.