I have seen a few adaptations of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll on screen, but had never actually read the original work itself. It starts off great - Alice, intrigued by a glimpse of a rabbit who appears to be muttering to himself - falls down a hole, and keeps falling and falling and falling - but remarkably, she isn't at all scared. What begins, as she falls, is an internal dialogue that I found highly entertaining. She bucks herself up and gives herself a good talking to at times, and then at others, pats herself on the back when she realises she understands a tricky word or situation. However, Alice isn't a totally lovable character and her impatience comes out - you can almost feel her stamping her foot in frustration at times - just like a real little girl. This book is a total flight of fancy - with talking creatures such as the white rabbit, the mad hatter and the dormouse, and of course, the royal household of Wonderland - a pack of cards - which has the unenviable task of dealing with the despotic Queen of Hearts who is forever instructing her minions to chop the head off yet another unfortunate soul. Alice finds herself meeting all sorts of creatures in this strange land and manages to keep her head before finding herself back where she started. I found much of this classic children's fantasy amusing, and although I felt it lost its way a little about halfway through, I did enjoy it on the whole, although as the Kindle version I read was just the plain text, I felt I missed out on the glorious illustrations of the print copy.
My STAR rating: THREE.
Length: 160 print pages.
Price I paid: free.
Formats available: print; abridged audio CD; unabridged audio download; ebook.
No comments:
Post a Comment