Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

March 1, 2002
An edition of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll contains all of Arthur Rackham's original artwork from the 1907 edition (published after Sir John Tenniel's illustrations). Pen-and-inks dot the text; full-page paintings, such as one sepia-toned frame showing Alice, in a delicate rose-patterned dress, addressing the hookah-smoking Caterpillar, plus a sewn-in satin bookmark make this an elegant gift choice.

February 29, 2016
Reader Reynolds buoyantly leads listeners down the rabbit hole and into the topsy-turvy world of Carroll’s Wonderland. When the young Alice follows a waistcoat-wearing rabbit holding a pocket watch, she finds herself in a fantastical world of talking mice, disappearing cats, hookah-smoking caterpillars, fish-headed footmen, and babies who turn into pigs. She shrinks smaller than a mouse and grows tall as a tree, participates in a mad tea party, plays croquet using flamingos for mallets, and runs afoul of the ill-tempered Queen of Hearts, whose cry of “Off with their heads!” seems to be the answer to most anything. It is a madcap, nonsensical entertainment, and Reynolds leaps into this tale’s telling with enthusiastic aplomb. Fully embracing the material, Reynolds delivers the author’s whimsical prose, poetry, and quirky characters with just the right touch of theatricality: bigger than life, but not completely over-the-top. It is a fine-tuned, enjoyable performance that allows the wonder of Wonderland to shine.

The time-honored puns, delightful logic, and surreal scenes in ALICE weave in and out of contemporary animations, commercials, rock videos and, most recently, computer games. To narrate the work is to take on the daunting task of performing a well-known classic. Narrator David Horovitch and a host of London-based voice talents read their parts with almost too much reverence. They know it is a classic and deliver it as such, making these fine performances sound slightly rote. The Queen sounds angry. The caterpillar--sleepy. Alice--very Victorian. It all has the nineteenth-century feel of adults presenting children's literature to children. Somewhere out there Lewis Carroll may be responding with a Cheshire smile. B.P. (c) AudioFile 2006, Portland, Maine