Funds for Bookworm are provided in part by Lannin Foundation.

Boots!

Where would we be without boos?

Where would we be without good?

No, Timberg.

It's a rhetorical question, sir.

But where would we be without books?

From KCRW and KCRW.com, I'm Michael Silverblatt, and this is Bookworm.

Today, my guest is Stephen Seder.

He's written a young adult novel called Alice by Heart, and it is about what it would be like for a young person, also named Alice, to read Alice in Wonderland during the Blitz in London.

She has a friend who introduced her to the book,

a guy who she was friends with from the age of six,

who she most attractively met in the giraffe house in Regent Park,

and he introduced her to Alice in Wonderland.

And from that point on, all the way up until the dropping of the bombs, they acted out, Alice in Wonderland, when playing together.

So this is a young adult novel, Alice by Heart, which is a novel about reading,

and about reading books that alter your life and your heart and your mind and your language.

This boy who she was in love with in the way of passion, not sex, from the age of six,

now has tuberculosis. He is dying, and he's down there in the underground station where people are hiding

out during the blitz.

He's been put into seclusion.

Red Cross nurses are tending to him and to other children.

...