Source of legend and lyric, reference and conjecture, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is for most children pure pleasure in prose. While adults try to decipher Lewis Carroll's putative use of complex mathematical codes in the text, or debate his alleged use of opium, young readers simply dive with Alice through the rabbit hole, pursuing "The dream-child moving through a land / Of wonders wild and new." There they encounter the White Rabbit, the Queen of Hearts, the Mock Turtle, and the Mad Hatter, among a multitude of other characters--extinct, fantastical, and commonplace creatures. Alice journeys through this Wonderland, trying to fathom the meaning of her strange experiences. But they turn out to be "curiouser and curiouser," seemingly without moral or sense.

For more than 130 years, children have reveled in the delightfully non-moralistic, non-educational virtues of this classic. In fact, at every turn, Alice's new companions scoff at her traditional education. The Mock Turtle, for example, remarks that he took the "regular course" in school: Reeling, Writhing, and branches of Arithmetic-Ambition, Distraction, Uglification, and Derision. Carroll believed John Tenniel's illustrations were as important as his text. Naturally, Carroll's instincts were good; the masterful drawings are inextricably tied to the well-loved story. (All ages) --Emilie Coulter --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

What the publisher calls the "ultimate" edition is in reality simply another look at Carroll's story in a beautifully produced volume--with an unusual twist. Edens has compiled various illustrations to the text that were made between 1865 and 1933. He presents the work of more than 25 artists, including John Tenniel, Arthur Rackham, Peter Newell, Willy Pogany, Gertrude Kay and Margaret Tarrant. But the result is a disjointed book that is disorienting to read. Illustrations by different artists, in color and black-and-white, are juxtaposed more to the text than to each other, and their varying styles create an effect that is more chaotic than instructional. Artistic comparisons would have been facilitated by captioning the illustrations with the date and artist's name, but unfortunately these details are provided only as a listing at the end of the book. To Eden's credit, many of the illustrations have been long out of print and are a joy to behold. The book appears to be more of a commercial exercise than a new look at Alice. All ages. 
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Gr 4-Up-McGraw provides a unique visual interpretation of Carroll's classic tale. As in Natasha Wing's Hippity Hop, Frog on Top (1994; o.p.) and Edward Lear's The New Vestments (1995; o.p., both S & S), his gouache illustrations are marked by bold, rich colors and a collage-style layout. His work suggests the influence of early 20th-century abstract, fantasy, and surrealist painters, as well as that of contemporary illustrator Brian Wildsmith. At times, the trip through Wonderland appears nightmarish. The images of Alice with the bottle of poison in front of her face and the executioner as a masked club card clutching an ax are particularly jarring. The story can be read on many levels. McGraw has chosen to portray the deeper, darker side of Alice's adventures. This is definitely a sophisticated and special interpretation that will appeal to a very limited, mature audience.

Heide Piehler, Shorewood Public Library, WI

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

On a sleepy summer afternoon, young Alice chases the White Rabbit down a rabbit hole in Lewis Carroll’s classic tale. York’s portrayal of Alice and the many strange characters she meets is a real treat. Reading in his native British accent and in sonorous tones, he is a terrific storyteller. York gives all characters, from the Queen of Hearts to the Cheshire Cat, distinctive voices and personalities, never resorting to cartoonlike portrayals. He personifies Alice in bright tones, calling to mind her enthusiasm and inquisitiveness. The audio is a great way for youngsters to experience and appreciate Carroll’s fantasy, even if some of the phrasing is a bit antiquated for modern listeners. Adults might also enjoy revisiting this multilayered children’s classic. An entertaining and lively performance. Grades 4-7. --Heather Booth --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Winner of a 2015 Gelett Burgess Children's Book Award

One of Buffalo News' 10 Rare and Wonderful Books for Holiday Giving 2015

Selected for Cosmos Magazine's Holiday Science Reading list 2015

One of Denver Life Magazine's 8 Books for Everyone on Your Holiday List

"Engaging the text side by side with the artwork yields a myriad of interesting tonal effects in both the words and the pictures. It's an entirely different approach to the notion of illustration. . . . This book succeeds in scratching the itch many admirers of Carroll and Dalí have felt for too long."--Megan Volpert, PopMatters

"[The drawings were] originally printed alongside the rise of 1960s psychedelia, we can return to examine the curious collaboration between one of the most prolific 20th-century dreamers and one of the 19th-century's most influential fantasies."--Allison Meier, Hyperallergic

"The hardcover book as a physical object has much to recommend it. Beautifully designed with high-quality paper, it is nonetheless inexpensive enough that parents shouldn't panic at the prospect of thumbprints and spills if they read or give it to their children. A great gift for children, children-at-heart, and lovers of timeless culture, it will earn a proud place by the bedside, on the bookshelf, or on the coffee table right beside the tiny golden key to the garden of your imagination."--Jon Sobel, Blogcritics.org

"Dali's illustrations have a colourful force of their own. Carroll's Alice anticipated the Surrealist wonderland: dreams and paradoxes, puns and psychoanalysis, distortions of space and time."--Dominic Green, Standpoint

"[This] is the copy of Alice's Adventures you keep after having given all the other celebratory variants away . . . it comes with two very astute and well-illustrated introductions. . . . It is, as the introductions state, as both creators would like to see it--two weird and/or wonderful minds with much in common, harmonizing across the centuries to result in this very handsome modern edition."--John Lloyd, The Bookbag

"All in all a marvelous book printed on thick paper. This anniversary edition will be an irresistible temptation to any bibliophile."--A. Bultheel

"The introduction by Burstein . . . and Thomas Banchoff provides a valuable grounding in [Dalí's] interests and obsessions at the time the gouaches were created."--Library Journal

"An elegant edition."--Art Quarterly

"[A] stunning 150th-anniversary edition of the classic novel Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. . . . Dalí's illustrations afford us a glimpse of Wonderland as he sees it, allowing us to better grasp the implications, tropes and symbols the work is pregnant with."--Wan Lixin, Shanghai Daily

"[S]tunning."--Bill Condie, Cosmos Magazine

"Older students, especially those studying art and graphics, might well find much to research in this extraordinary collaboration."--Jane Doonan, School Librarian

"For more than half a century, this unusual yet organic cross-pollination of genius remained an almost mythic artifact, reserved for collectors and scholars. To mark the 150th anniversary of the beloved book, Princeton University Press brought back to life the Dalí-illustrated Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. . . . A crowning achievement among the greatest illustrations of the Carroll masterpiece from the century and a half since its inception, featuring new introductions by Mark Burstein, president of the Lewis Carroll Society of North America, and mathematician Thomas Banchoff, who knew and collaborated with Dalí."--Maria Popova, Brain Pickings

"The book itself is a beautiful physical object, and it makes available for the first time to the general public Salvador Dalí's illustrations for the 1969 Random House edition [Maecenas Press, New York]. We hold it in our hands, enjoying its weight and beautiful cover (Salvador Dalí's The lobster's quadrille). We open it at random, and our eyes feel immediately welcomed by the comfortable text size and off-white high-quality paper. We glance through its pages, noticing their pleasant texture, and our curiosity is raised by the attractive colors and shapes of the illustrations. We know, even before we start, that reading Carroll's story in this edition will be a wonderful experience. We sit comfortably, open the book and . . . off we go!"--Capi Corrales-Rodrigáñez, MathSciNet

`The delicacy and intelligence of George Walker's print-making seems to have come to us from a bygone age. Fortunately, we have George with us now.'

For A Is for Alice:

`Here is the book that Alice herself would have loved, with wonderfully whimsical illustrations by one of Canada's greatest woodcut artists, George Walker.... Combining technical mastery with insight and wit, George has re-created a much loved classic in an old world style. This book will be an essential and cherished possession for every Carrollian collector and lover of children's literature.'

For A Is for Alice:

`Each image offered here provides evidence of its creation; there is a reminder, with each turn of the page, of the hand and thought that guided each groove. Walker's ability to impress such great detail (as in the grain of both the fur of the Cheshire Cat, and the branch upon which he is perched) in a print made with woodblocks is remarkable.... At the heart of this book is the art of the book, pages kissed by poetic samples of Carroll's writing and bound using artisan techniques onsite at The Porcupine's Quill headquarters. It is a high-quality, collectible edition in which fans of the Alice stories, bibliophiles, and young readers will delight.