Lewis Carroll’s “Alice in Wonderland” and “Through the Looking Glass” are two of my favorite childhood books (okay, two of my favorite all-time books). While not exactly true to the books, Disney’s “Alice in Wonderland” does a wonderful job of bringing Wonderland to life.
Alice and her sister are reading poetry on the banks of the river one afternoon when she suddenly spots a white rabbit, dressed in a waistcoat with a pocket watch, which he keeps anxiously checking. Alice, unable to resist her curiosity, follows the rabbit into a rabbit hole and finds herself falling, rather slowly, down a very long hole. When she eventually gets to the bottom, landing safely, she tries to continue following the rabbit, but he scoots through a door through which she is too big to follow.
Ironically it is Alice’s curiosity that always gets her into trouble and sometimes saves her from said trouble (there’s no doubt there’s a lesson there intended for children). Alice finds a cake that says “Eat Me”, which of course, she does and finds herself shrunk down enough to follow the White Rabbit. It’s not as easy as that though. The door is locked and the key is on top of the table. Once this problem is solved, Alice finds herself traversing her way through Wonderland encountering many strange and confusing creatures some of who try to help, and others who seem bent on not letting her get home.
“Alice in Wonderland” is a great film for the whole family, which I was surprised to read was a box office flop when it was first released in 1951. But since then, it has become a classic (much in the same way “The Wizard of Oz” did). For those fans who haven’t read the books, I recommend them highly as well (they’re good read-aloud material for kids who aren’t quite up to reading chapter books yet) and for adults, I recommend “The Annotated Alice” which has a great many interesting anecdotes and comments about the meanings of Lewis Carroll’s seemingly nonsensical world.