If you go into this book knowing what it’s about, you will think you know a lot more than you do. There is a joy in matching the characters to the writers you get to know later through their works, but Valente is very clear that she is not interested in telling a Victorian child's tale. She could evoke the language of Alice, but she consciously chooses not to, drawing instead on her own brand of joyful preposterousness.
Having said that, the more you suspend your disbelief about the history and, paradoxically, the more you know about the Brontes and their juvenilia, the more this book will delight you.