Alice in Wonderland by
Lewis Carroll, retold by Joe Rhatigan & Charles Nurnberg, illustrated by
Eric Puybaret (Koala Books for Scholastic)
HB
RRP $24.99
ISBN
978-1-74276-141-1
Reviewed
by Jenny Heslop
Alice is a bold girl with a curious
nature. Intrigued by a white rabbit with a pocket watch, she follows him down
his rabbit hole and finds herself in a magical land full of strange and
wonderful creatures.
This modern retelling of Alice in
Wonderland pares back the story into a simplified version appropriate to a
picture book format. It captures Alice’s mood of careless casualness
beautifully.
‘Alice
was sitting by the river having an oh-so-ordinary afternoon, when a White
Rabbit ran by.’
Rather than attempt to tell the whole
story, we are given a slice of Alice’s adventures to follow. We meet the
increasingly, urgently late White Rabbit, the Dodo, Mouse, Bill the Lizard and
the blue caterpillar sitting on a giant mushroom. But no Cheshire Cat, Mad
Hatter, or Queen and cards. Perhaps there are more books to come.
The vibrant, bold, luminescent and curious illustrations match the zany
storyline well. The glossy pages glow with colour. Wide-eyed Alice is
surrounded by, not only the creatures mentioned in the text, but also weird and
wonderful insects, birds, monkeys. The strange environment of Wonderland is
subtle, but if you pay close attention you can make out the faces in the trees
and clouds, the appearance of a seal in the island in the lake of tears, and
the carrot forest.
As in all good picture books, the text
changes in font and size, becoming part of the page layout, emphasising the
reading of certain words.
Alice
in Wonderland is a literary classic. Read and
loved over the years by countless children and adults, this fun version is the
150th anniversary edition. Join Alice in her own bizarre world where
she shrinks, grows and explores the wonders of an afternoon which turns out to
be ‘not ordinary at all’.
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