Alice in Wonderland: Down the Rabbit Hole

by Lewis Carroll, Joe Rhatigan (As Told by), Eric Puybaret (Illustrator), Charles Nurnberg (As Told by)

Overview

THIS STUNNING NEW VERSION OF A CLASSIC IS THE BEST WAY TO ENTER WONDERLAND . . . WITHOUT ACTUALLY FALLING DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE.

Alice in Wonderland is one of the most wondrous, truly original stories ever written—filled with magical and marvelous happenings. On its 150th anniversary in 2015, Lewis Carroll’s tale of a world gone topsy-turvy gets a unique picture-book retelling of the beginning of Alice’s journey, with elegantly simplified text that keeps all of the astonishing adventures and wide-eyed amazement of the original. What a wonderful Introduction for young children to many of the classic Carroll characters - Alice and The White Rabbit, the Blue Caterpillar, Bill the Lizard and more. Many of the most famous phrases are here— like "Curiouser and curiouser" and "Oh dear, oh dear, I shall be too late" to prepare youngsters for the time they’re ready to read the whole book in its original form.

Award-winning, bestselling artist Eric Puybaret creates an enchanting and magical Wonderland that looks like no other interpretation. Every spread in this magnificently produced volume is rich in charm, gloriously colorful, yet fresh and modern. From the extraordinary White Rabbit in his brilliantly red suit to the timelessly graceful young heroine, this is the Alice today’s young children can relate to. It’s the perfect, glorious introduction to a classic, a taste of what magic awaits them in the future.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781607348283
Publisher:	Charlesbridge
Publication date:	02/10/2015
Sold by:	Penguin Random House Publisher Services
Format:	eBook
Pages:	28
Lexile:	670L (what's this?)
File size:	40 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.
Age Range:	4 - 8 Years

About the Author

Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, better known by his pen name, Lewis Carroll, was an English writer, mathematician, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer. Joe Rhatigan has authored more than fifteen books for children and adults, including Don't Unravel When You Travel and Out-of-This-World Astronomy. He has also produced several best-selling books and series, including 101 Places You Gotta See Before You're 12!, The Boo Boo Book, and the My Very Favorite Art Book series. Joe has been a poet, a teacher, a marketing manager, and a newspaper boy. He lives in Asheville, North Carolina, with his wife and three children. Charles Nurnberg is the co-creator of this retelling of Lewis's classic. Eric Puybaret is the best-selling illustrator of Puff, the Magic Dragon, The Night Before Christmas, Over the Rainbow, It’s Raining, It’s Pouring, as well as numerous books in his native France. His art, has been called "elegantly rendered," by the New York Times; "graceful [and] whimsical," by Publishers Weekly; and "lovely…and indeed magical," by Kirkus Reviews.

Date of Birth:

January 27, 1832

Date of Death:

January 14, 1898

Place of Birth:

Daresbury, Cheshire, England

Place of Death:

Guildford, Surrey, England

Education:

Richmond School, Christ Church College, Oxford University, B.A., 1854; M.A., 1857

Website:

http://www.lewis-carroll-birthplace.org.uk/

Read an Excerpt

Alice was sitting by the river having an oh-so-ordinary afternoon, when a White Rabbit ran by. Not just any old rabbit, but one with pink eyes, a red jacket, and a great big pocket watch.
            “Oh dear! Oh dear! I shall be too late!” he groaned, looking at his watch. Then ZIP! he disappeared down a rabbit hole.
            Alice did what any curious girl or boy would do. She followed him right into the hole.

Editorial Reviews

11/24/2014
Puybaret brings a playful sophistication to his dreamlike images, which are well matched to the unpredictable atmosphere of Carroll’s classic fantasy. However, this adaptation only sets out to tell the first part of Alice’s story, focusing on her helter-skelter pursuit of the White Rabbit and her fluctuating size as she samples Wonderland’s drinks, cakes, and mushrooms. The illustrator’s inventive use of perspective makes the most of these transformations (readers peer down at Alice from above as she shrinks, for example), but Alice’s literal highs and lows don’t add up to much of a story. Puybaret includes a cameo from the Cheshire Cat and an allusion to the Mad Hatter’s tea party, but these and others are left to (possible) later books. A visually enticing story, albeit one that doesn’t stand on its own. All ages. (Feb.)

Publishers Weekly

"A much-abridged version of the classic's first five chapters, dressed up with large and properly surreal illustrations."
...Pretty...
-Kirkus Reviews

"Puybaret’s colorful acrylic paintings emit a glow of whimsy perfectly suited for Alice’s journey. A Wonderland map, reminiscent of a Candy Land board, graces the end papers. Though lacking the wordplay and darkness of the original Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, this simplified rendition will nevertheless fill young readers with wonder."
-Booklist Online


This much-pared-down picture book adaption takes a modern-looking heroine down the rabbit hole and through the first five chapters of Carroll's classic tale. Though some of the original dialogue is retained, the story is told in updated narration. The paintings create a dreamlike reality, depicting the creatures and landscapes of Wonderland with warm-hued brushstroked backgrounds, clean lines, unexpected color choices, and whimsical details. The playful use of shadow and perspective emphasize Alice's size shifts, as she consumes edibles that make her stature fluctuate between tiny and tremendous, treks through a river of her own tears, and, with the advice of a Blue Caterpillar, finally nibbles a mushroom and returns "to the right size. Phew!" The action abruptly ends there, with Alice pondering how to get home (and the tea party beckoning in the distance). VERDICT While some moments of the story are effectively depicted, the whirlwind pace covers too much territory too quickly, making it difficult to follow for those unfamiliar with the tale.
-School Library Journal

From the Publisher

03/01/2015
PreS-Gr 2—This much-pared-down picture book adaption takes a modern-looking heroine down the rabbit hole and through the first five chapters of Carroll's classic tale. Though some of the original dialogue is retained, the story is told in updated narration. The paintings create a dreamlike reality, depicting the creatures and landscapes of Wonderland with warm-hued brushstroked backgrounds, clean lines, unexpected color choices, and whimsical details. The playful use of shadow and perspective emphasize Alice's size shifts, as she consumes edibles that make her stature fluctuate between tiny and tremendous, treks through a river of her own tears, and, with the advice of a Blue Caterpillar, finally nibbles a mushroom and returns "to the right size. Phew!" The action abruptly ends there, with Alice pondering how to get home (and the tea party beckoning in the distance). VERDICT While some moments of the story are effectively depicted, the whirlwind pace covers too much territory too quickly, making it difficult to follow for those unfamiliar with the tale.—Joy Fleishhacker, School Library Journal

School Library Journal

2014-11-18
A much-abridged version of the classic's first five chapters, dressed up with large and properly surreal illustrations.Rhatigan and Nurnberg retain "Curiouser and curiouser!" and other select bits of the original while recasting the narrative in various sizes of type and a modern-sounding idiom: "Tiny Alice needed something special to eat to get back to her regular girl size." They take Carroll's bemused young explorer past initial ups and downs and her encounter with a certain (here, nonsmoking) Blue Caterpillar. Looking more to Disney than Tenniel, Puybaret casts Alice as a slender figure with flyaway corn-silk hair and big, blue, widely spaced eyes posing with balletic grace against broadly airbrushed backdrops. Leafless trees and barren hills give Wonderland an open, autumnal look. The odd vegetation adds an otherworldly tone, and compact houses and residents from the White Rabbit and the Dodo to occasional troupes of mice or other small creatures in circus dress are depicted with precise, lapidary polish. A marginally relevant endpaper map (partly blocked by the flaps) leads down the River of Tears, past a turnoff for a Bathroom and on toward "the Tea Party." Pretty, though as condensations go, less Wonder-full than Robert Sabuda's pop-up Alice (2003) or the digital Alicewinks (2013). (Picture book. 5-8)

Kirkus Reviews