Tuesday, March 16, 2010

All About Alice



My family is in the throes of an Alice fever. Its all Wonderland, all the time at our place. Seconda has been on a jag where she's watched the Disney movie on my old VHS cassette, every single day for the past few weeks. Consider the picture of her in her Alice apparel (a hand-me-down dress from the Canary Islands which she hasn't taken off in two months, despite the fact that it has been bitter winter). And after reading the full text by Lewis Carroll, Primo is prone to quote "How doth the little crocodile" or "You are old Father William" at any given moment.

So I was totally psyched to write this piece for Time Out NY Kids about where to find Alice in NYC:

Curiouser and Curiouser

And in case you're in the market for an edition of Alice, allow me to give you a tour of our Wonderland library:

Here's the edition of the full text we read, with great, updated watercolor illustrations by Helen Oxenbury.

Then you've got the Alice Pop-up by Robert Sabuda, King of the Pop-up. We have Sabuda's Peter Pan and The Wizard of Oz which rest on our "treasured, not to be touched by a two year-old" shelf. His stuff is spectacular, and although its not the full text, the pages include a really ample portion of the text, which is well edited. The best part is the page which she falls down the hole and you can actually stretch out an accordion-like section and look through a tiny hole to find Alice at the bottom.

Just got this Alice in Wonderland, retold by Jon Scieszka, who I absolutely adore, with pictures by Mary Blair, who did the original art for the Disney movie back in the 50s. Opening line: "Have you ever tried to listen to a long, boring schoolbook on a warm, lazy day?" I should qualify by saying I am now obsessed with this series of re-tellings of classic Disney, with the Mary Blair illustrations: check out Peter Pan and Cinderella.

We were in BJs wholesale club and stumbled upon this gem: Alice, a wacky lift-the-flap guide with excerpts from Carroll. Pull the tab to see Alice's neck get really really looooong.

Primo unearthed an edition I read in college (and took notes in!) of Alice in Wonderland and Alice Through the Looking-Glass, with the original illustrations by John Tenniel, which are, rather unbeatable.

But my daughter's most treasured copy, tattered and torn, brought to school every morning for the past few months . . .

Disney's Alice, from the dollar bin at Target

The dollar bin never lets us down.

Anyone see the Tim Burton movie? Primo is dying to go but considering the Shadow Man in The Princess and the Frog caused him to have nightmares for a week, I think we'll have to say No, although David and I are thinking about seeing it, just the two of us. Opinions? Reviews?