Very Truly Yours, Charles L. Dodgson, Alias Lewis Carroll: A Biography

This biography of Lewis Carroll will intrigue children as well as adults with its view of this ""puzzling man, imaginative, eccentric, and perhaps best understood by the children he loved.'' Begun as part of research in Oxford for a master's thesis, this 118-page book is happily devoid of pedantry and filled with anecdotes and quotations from Dodgson's letters and puzzles for children. Although the book opens with Dodgson's childhood in Oxford and ends with his death, it is not a complete and chronologically ordered biography. Bassett focuses instead on Dodgson's friendships with childrentheir meetings, letters and visits, as well as the stories Dodgson told them, the photographs and drawings he made of them, and the poetry, riddles and sermons he invented for their pleasure. Well illustrated with photographs and drawings, this is an entertaining biography that combines careful research and readability. Ages 10-up. (October)