Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

Lewis Carroll

Jan 1869 · Lee and Shepard

Ratings and reviews

Everyone has had that one dream, the one that was so inexplicably odd and out of the blue they still remember it to this day, even if it was many years ago. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll is oddly reminiscent of such a dream, but with a little more meaning. The whimsical tale starts with a young girl named Alice, who was accompanying her older sister by a riverbank. Alice was growing bored of her sister reading when she suddenly caught sight of a white rabbit with some peculiar features. First, he talked. Next, he pulled a pocket watch out of his waistcoat. Then, he scurried away. Naturally, Alice decided to follow this strange rabbit, and by doing so Alice sent herself down the rabbit hole. Not just figuratively either; she literally fell down a rabbit hole, and the events just get weirder from here. After growing and shrinking numerous times from numerous snacks while trying to fit through a door, Alice stumbles a variety of odd animals. A smoking, quizzical caterpillar, a grinning cat that appears out of thin air, a walking deck of playing cards with a beheading-obsessed queen, and other equally strange creatures are encountered by Alice. After these odd interactions, a few narrow run-ins with said homicidal Queen of Hearts, and an impressive act of defiance to the royals, Alice finally returns to the real world- only to realize Wonderland was just a dream. Just a typical summer afternoon, right? Overall, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland is a decent read. Despite not being Goldilocks, this book is just right in terms of length and writing style. It is neither too long nor too short, and Carroll’s prose is not unnecessarily heavy, but it does not sound like a children’s book, either. Unfortunately, though, this middle ground makes the book kind of unmemorable. Kind of a jack of all trades, but master of none, nothing about this book is bad, but nothing particularly stands out, either. Because this book is in the middle of essentially every spectrum, I really cannot recommend nor not recommend it. It is a respectable level for most ages, but on the same time there are more entertaining stories to read.

I am not giving 3 stars to the story; I am giving it to the this e-book. This version is an automatically generated thing by scanning a 1918 U.S. print, and nobody seemed to have proofread it. There are some weird conversion errors such as small w instead of the quotation mark. Also, this is not the original British spelling. I am switching to a British version, the one with mushrooms on the cover.

I first read this book in grammer school (1955) and still consider it my favorite. After reading this book again a few days ago with Alice my pet white Bunny rabbit relaxing with me, we listened to the Jefferson Airplane's song WHITE RABBIT. Everything became "deja vu"...'