Hello again folks... this time it is Sunday morning. Perhaps it is a more convenient time for me to write since Barbara and I have returned from our ritual breakfast at Panera Bread. And we have had opportunity to get into some stimulating discussion. So in the glow of that mood, let me tell you of a fascinating book that I read just recently.
The book is entitled "Down the Rabbit Hole" by Peter Abrahams. This is a modernized version of the original Lewis Caroll story of a young girl who falls down a hole chasing a rabbit. Alice, in this case, is a just-turned thirteen year old who rises to the challenges of everything from teeth braces to the complications of her first romance and the more complicated drives and perhaps evil passions of the adults around her.
The setting is the small New England town of Echo Falls. This appealed to Barbara since she grew up in Hubbertston, which was just down the road a piece from the thriving metropolis of Gardner, Massachusetts. A town where one could walk from one end to the other in an hour or perhaps jog through in a half hour. A town where everybody knew everybody and better than that they knew what everyody was up to. Or did they?
Ingrid is our protagonist in this story and she shows all the characteristics of a teener as she interacts with her friends at school. But at the same time shows some very mature responses as the story enfolds. Ingrid has read everything that Conan-Doyle has written about Sherlock Holmes and his sidekick Doctor Watson. And this stands her in good stead when she tries to understand the whacky world that she has been thrust into as a freshly-minted teeny bopper.
Ingrid/Alice shows that she is also well-read since one of the clues toward the end is based on a portion of the poem "Xanadu" by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. This helps her reveal the true identity of the antagonist who tries to kill her in the end. But to tell you any more would spoil the story for those of you whose interest has been kindled at this point.
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