You know how one of those “getting to know you” things that people do is ask about your favorite movie/band/book/whatever? I kind of hate that, because whenever I’m put on the spot, it’s like my brain just goes into a fugue state, paralyzed by indecision. I’m hard-pressed to remember what a book IS, much less try to figure out which one is my favorite—even my favorite for that particular day, much less of all time.

My default answer for favorite book tends to be The Great Gatsby, simply because that was the first “grownup” book I read and understood and was able to appreciate how every single word mattered. My default answer for favorite movie tends to be A Christmas Story because those scenes of Midwestern winters on the school playground really resonate, and the Old Man had more than a little in common with how I perceived my grandfather.

But in terms of longevity, Alice in Wonderland has ‘em both beat, on the page and on the screen. (And I’m talking the 1951 Disney cartoon, not that terrifying Tim Burton thing or any of the other 80 or so options.)

I have adored Alice since I was around four. Someone gave me a simplified version of the story in a pop-up book that I pretty much loved to death. Among other things, it had a pull-tab that changed the white roses to red, and it had another pull-tab that moved a flamingo’s neck and rolled the hedgehog/ball. I scoured the internet looking for this book, but all I can find is a 2003 version that clearly took a bunch of those elements and embellished them.

I think I was seven when I read the full Alice books the first time, and I felt I had found my literary twin. I liked the Oz books, but Dorothy was too sweet for me. I liked the Little House books, but Laura’s problems were too real to be funny. Alice, on the other hand—she wasn’t a goody two shoes, she was a smart aleck. She tried to be nice, but she didn’t always succeed. She was often impatient, intermittently bewildered, and occasionally lonely—all of which really hit home for this only child. Alice was where I turned when I was (often) sent to my room, when I woke up from nightmares, when I was on the outs with my classmates. I memorized The Walrus and the Carpenter and Jabberwocky.

It was a trauma of my childhood that the damn Alice ride at Disneyland was closed for repairs every single time we went until right before we moved to Illinois, my VERY LAST CHANCE, PRACTICALLY ON OUR WAY OUT OF TOWN. I was hopeful when we moved to Florida that I’d get to see it again, but there is no Alice ride at Disney World, and I had to wait until I went back to California for college to ride it a second time in my life. I have to believe it is only a matter of time before they kill Alice like they did Mr. Toad, but I’m glad it’s still there for now, although I suspect it has been upgraded into something unrecognizable, much like the Pirates of the Caribbean.

I was in junior high when I finally saw the movie. It was not —could not be—as enchanting as the book, but it might be my favorite Disney cartoon that does not involve dogs.

Alice came back as a totem when I went to college. Once again in a world I found exasperating, confusing, and lonely, that book lived in my purse for an entire semester. I still have friends from those days who send me Alice gear for birthdays.

My grandfather, who scoffed at all things child-related, spent 23 years calling me a mental midget for loving Alice as much as I did. Then he finally broke down and read it—presumably because it was that or a copy of Cosmopolitan in a dentist’s waiting room or something like that. He actually called me long-distance. Did he apologize? No, of course not. Instead, he went on for 15 minutes about how clever it was and how the word play was top rate and how much he liked Alice’s attitude. Did I say “I told you so?” No. I just thought, “we’re all mad here,” and told him I was happy he liked it.