#18-Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

An apdatation of Lewis Carroll's Original Tale

Illustrated by Robert Sabuda

Little Simon, 2003

12 Pages

Fantasy

   

      This is a pop-up adaptation of Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland. It chronicles the adventures that Alice has after she falls down the rabbit hole and into a mysterious wonderland. She chases the white rabbit who is late for a very important date, eats a cake that makes her shrink, has a conversation with a caterpillar, has tea with the mad hatter and plays croquet with the queen using a flamingo. Alice finally wakes up and finds that she has really been sleeping all this time.

      Sabuda uses his paper engineering skills to turn this classic into a interactive story. The story literally comes alive as the characters pop off the pages. There are several interactive things in the book. My favorite was an accordion like paper structure that you lift up and then look down the hole at the top. This lets the reader actually look down the rabbit hole and it makes it feel like you can actually see Alice as she falls down the very long dark hole.

     This would be great to have in any classroom. Both younger and older children would enjoy this book. Older children would be able to read the story on their own and the pop-up would be very appealing to younger children. I think that this book could be used in an older classroom to show that illustrations don't always have to be 2-D. After having the students look at the book they could be encouraged to make their own mini pop-up book. I think it would also be a great way to start introducing harder books that students will have to read in the upper grades. Alice in Wonderland is not an easy read but this pop-up version would make it fun and enjoyable. I think children of all ages would really love this book. I do think it is the type of book that should be borrowed from the teacher, however, because of it's fragile nature. I think it would be better for the teacher to keep this in his/her private library and allow students to “check it out” and be given strict rules as to how to handle the book.