We’ve been reading Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland to Anna at bedtime. We do a chapter a night. When we leave the room, however, she picks up the book and goes on reading, getting about halfway through the next chapter on her own before she goes to sleep.

I finished “Lobster Quadrille” before I left her room a few minutes ago, but waited outside her door to listen to her begin “Who Stole the Tarts.” She read to herself out loud, handling 19th century rhythms much better than I do when I read to her.

After a few moments I poked my head back in her room, making the excuse that I thought I had forgotten to shut her window, but mostly because I just wanted to see her lying in bed, reading the book. As I left the room I asked her what she thinks of nonsense.

“Daddy, it’s not nonsense. It’s Wonderland,” she said, not taking her eyes off the book for a second.