Review: Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

Author: Lewis Carroll

My Rating: 4 stars (out of 5)

This is the first review on our blog ever so I think it's fitting that the review is on Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll. If you hadn't noticed, we sort of have an Alice in Wonderland theme going on here. I mean really, it's in the name.

"Curiouser and curiouser!" Cried Alice (she was so much surprised, that for the moment she quite forgot how to speak good English)."

Plus, the whole Wonderland for Booklovers thing.

So anyway, we've all heard of Alice in Wonderland. We've seen the Disney film, the Time Burton film; we know the story of Alice and her trip down the rabbithole. But I'm not sure how many of us have read the original. Isn't that the thing with children's classics? We've all seen the movies, but unless you had the kind of parents who read you bedtime stories when you were a kid, you don't read the originals. At least in my experience that's how it is. One day I just felt like reading the original Alice in Wonderland and so I did.

I read this Lewis Carroll classic a couple years ago, so some things are fuzzy, but let me try to break it down for those of you who have been living under a rock since . . . the 1800s.

One day a girl named Alice finds herself very bored. She's sitting outside by a riverbank with her sister and her cat with nothing to do. Then as luck would have it, she sees a white rabbit racing along. Of course, there's nothing very spectacular about white rabbits, but this one catches Alice's eye. She decides to follow the curious little thing down a rabbithole and finds herself tangled up in some rather peculiar adventures in a fantastical place called Wonderland.

Doesn't that sound enchanting? I sure think it does. Alice in Wonderland is very strange to say the least. It's literally nonsense. It's literary nonsense. Seriously, I think it's in the literary nonsense genre. So there's the first sign as to whether or not you'll enjoy this weird little story. Do you enjoy nonsense? Or are you very matter-of-fact? I think enjoyment will depend on if you can suspend belief for a while and just let yourself get lost in Wonderland along with Alice. I'll admit, some of her adventures were too peculiar for my tastes. Some I even found boring. But I overall I enjoyed it and I fell down that rabbithole right alongside Alice.

What I think is great about this book is that everyone will come out of it with something different. There is so much nonsense that you kind of just have to fill in the blanks because there is a lot of symbolism and depth to this children's story. Everything in that book could be a symbol for something. Of course, everything everywhere could be a symbol for something if you spin it the right way, but you get my point. The adventures Alice has could have different meanings to different people.

I definitely recommend Alice in Wonderland. I think it's a wonderful (no pun intended) tale and it'll delight the kids as well as everyone else.

This is only the second blog post, but I hope you enjoy this little Wonderland we've created here.

Happy reading!

♥ Ash

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