Busy Alice in Wonderland

From TheBookbag
Revision as of 08:57, 12 June 2015 by Sue (talk | contribs) (Created page with "{{infoboxplain |title=Busy Alice in Wonderland |reviewer=Sue Magee |genre=For Sharing |summary=A well-made and thoroughly enjoyable board book which will serve as an excellent...")
(diff) ← Older revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)
Jump to navigationJump to search


Busy Alice in Wonderland

Rating: 4.5/5
Reviewer: Sue Magee
Reviewed by Sue Magee
Summary: A well-made and thoroughly enjoyable board book which will serve as an excellent introduction to the Alice stories.
Buy? Yes Borrow? Yes
Pages: 10 Date: May 2015
Publisher: Campbell Books
ISBN: 978-1447277699

Share on: Delicious Digg Facebook Reddit Stumbleupon Follow us on Twitter


Now I'm not a great fan of Alice in Wonderland: I've never enjoyed fantasy and, as a child, there was something about the story which left me very uneasy. But it's stood the test of time for 150 years and I've come to accept that I'm the exception rather than the rule. A friend who is a fan was chatting to me recently and lamented the fact that her grandchild wasn't old enough to appreciate the story and I undertook to look around the bookshelves to see what was available and I think I might have come up with the answer.

Busy Alice in Wonderland is a board book, with paper (or should it be 'board'?) engineering. It would seem to too crass to describe what can be done with the book as 'pull the tab'. A pulled tab moves the hedgehog forward, paints the blooms red and puts stripes onto the cat's teeth (and all that is on the cover!) A finger in a ring moving through a curve drops Alice down the rabbit hole. The potion which Alice drinks quickly reduces her size and a turning wheel pours tea out of the pot. It's all brilliantly done and despite trying my best I couldn't find a single sharp edge or one of the pieces of engineering that I thought would soon need repair. It's a book which you could leave with a child rather than feeling that it needed to be kept on 'Mummy's shelf'.

With only ten pages the story is obviously a little limited but it gives a flavour of the plot and it should not be difficult for an adult to elaborate according to the age of the child, although I suspect that the fun of whizzing Alice up and down the rabbit hole will outweigh the story of what is behind the pictures for quite a while. The colours are strong and the illustrations vivid: it's one of the best board books which we've seen for quite a while and I'd like to thank the publishers for sending a copy of the book to the Bookbag.

Macmillan have published this book and we've been impressed by the other editions of Alice which have been published for the 150th anniversary celebrations.

Please share on: Facebook Facebook, Follow us on Twitter Twitter and Follow us on Instagram Instagram

Buy Busy Alice in Wonderland at Amazon You can read more book reviews or buy Busy Alice in Wonderland at Amazon.co.uk Amazon currently charges £2.99 for standard delivery for orders under £20, over which delivery is free.
Buy Busy Alice in Wonderland at Amazon You can read more book reviews or buy Busy Alice in Wonderland at Amazon.com.

Comments

Like to comment on this review?

Just send us an email and we'll put the best up on the site.