Alice by Heart

by Steven Sater Narrated by Marisa Calin, Steven Sater

Overview

A young girl takes refuge in a London Tube station during WWII and confronts grief, loss, and first love with the help of her favorite book, Alice in Wonderland, in the debut novel from Tony Award-winning playwright Steven Sater.

London, 1940. Amidst the rubble of the Blitz of World War II, fifteen-year-old Alice Spencer and her best friend, Alfred, are forced to take shelter in an underground tube station. Sick with tuberculosis, Alfred is quarantined, with doctors saying he won't make it through the night. In her desperation to keep him holding on, Alice turns to their favorite pastime: recalling the book that bonded them, and telling the story that she knows by heart--the story of Alice in Wonderland.

What follows is a stunning, fantastical journey that blends Alice's two worlds: her war-ravaged homeland being held together by nurses and soldiers and Winston Churchill, and her beloved Wonderland, a welcome distraction from the bombs and the death, but a place where one rule always applies: the pages must keep turning. But then the lines between these two worlds begin to blur. Is that a militant Red Cross Nurse demanding that Alice get BACK. TO. HER. BED!, or is it the infamous Queen of Hearts saying...something about her head? Soon, Alice must decide whether to stay in Wonderland forever, or embrace the pain of reality if that's what it means to grow up.

In this gorgeous YA adaption of his off-Broadway musical, the Tony Award-winning co-creator of Spring Awakening encourages us all to celebrate the transformational power of the imagination, even in the harshest of times.

Editorial Reviews

MAY 2020 - AudioFile

Narrator Marisa Calin’s crisp British accent engages listeners as she tells the story of Alice Spencer. Alice’s distress amid the blitzkriegs of WWII and fear for her best friend, Alfred, are clear in Calin’s voice. Alice comforts herself with memories of the times she and Alfred would escape into their beloved ALICE’S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND. In her strange bombed city, Alice Spencer’s confusion becomes very like that of the literary Alice. Though Calin’s precise enunciation highlights the beautiful writing and the literary references may please Lewis Carroll fans, Alice’s ponderous reflections and the slow pacing of the story and narrator may stop young adult listeners. Steve Sater’s author’s note tells of his youth when “books were my everything” and recounts his creation of the musical on which this audiobook is based. S.W. © AudioFile 2020, Portland, Maine

MAY 2020 - AudioFile

Narrator Marisa Calin’s crisp British accent engages listeners as she tells the story of Alice Spencer. Alice’s distress amid the blitzkriegs of WWII and fear for her best friend, Alfred, are clear in Calin’s voice. Alice comforts herself with memories of the times she and Alfred would escape into their beloved ALICE’S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND. In her strange bombed city, Alice Spencer’s confusion becomes very like that of the literary Alice. Though Calin’s precise enunciation highlights the beautiful writing and the literary references may please Lewis Carroll fans, Alice’s ponderous reflections and the slow pacing of the story and narrator may stop young adult listeners. Steve Sater’s author’s note tells of his youth when “books were my everything” and recounts his creation of the musical on which this audiobook is based. S.W. © AudioFile 2020, Portland, Maine

Product Details

BN ID:	2940172370328
Publisher:	Penguin Random House
Publication date:	02/04/2020
Edition description:	Unabridged
Age Range:	10 - 13 Years

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