When Alice follows the White Rabbit down a rabbit hole, she finds herself in a land where she can change her size. She meets a Duchess with a pig for a baby, a Cook that throws spoons, a wise but mad Cheshire cat, the March Hare, Mad Hatter and a Dormouse. A Caterpillar shows her how to adjust her height by eating from the right and left sides of a mushroom.
With that knowledge, Alice is able to enter a beautiful garden to play croquet with the Queen of Hearts. This game of croquet is played with flamingos [mallets], balls [curled-up hedgehogs] and an army of bent-over cards [arches]. As the living croquet game continually changes, the Queen has most of her guests arrested, but introduces Alice to a Gryphon and Mock Turtle. By the end, almost everyone she meets ends up in a courtroom where the King of Hearts wants a verdict before the evidence, jurors pay attention to all the wrong information, witnesses are threatened with punishment and Alice grows tall enough not to be intimidated by a pack of cards, which is what the court and soldiers are. Suddenly Alice wakes up and realizes that her entire adventure was an amazing dream.
Christian Beliefs
Other Belief Systems
Authority Roles
The White Rabbit scurries around as if it’s an important person and tells Alice, who he mistakenly calls Mary Ann, to fetch his gloves and fan. When she does this and drinks a liquid that makes her grow so large that she becomes stuck in one of the White Rabbit’s rooms, the White Rabbit gets the Lizard that works for him to attack her from the chimney. When that doesn’t work, they throw rocks at Alice.
The White Rabbit reacts without fully understanding the problem. The Mad Hatter, March Hare and Dormouse host a tea party, but they are rude to Alice when she wants to be included. The Queen of Hearts misuses her authority and constantly orders people’s heads removed, but the Gryphon tells Alice that no one in the kingdom has ever been executed. The King of Hearts wants a verdict before evidence, both at the ending trial and when he demands that the Cheshire cat lose its head, even though only its head has appeared at the croquet game. The Gryphon and Mock Turtle tell Alice that her recitations are nonsense, but they do it in a way that she accepts.
Profanity & Violence
The Queen and King of Hearts threaten people with decapitation and execution. Rocks are thrown at Alice, and she and a number of birds and animals fall into water that they swim out of so they don’t drown. Alice mentions how her dog and cat kill and often eat birds and mice.
Sexual Content
Discussion Topics
Additional Comments
The March Hare offers Alice wine at a tea party, but since there isn’t any wine, he doesn’t give it to her.
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A hot summer’s day on the riverbank, and young Alice is bored. Bored, that is, until a white rabbit in a checked jacket scurries past in a great hurry, examining a pocket watch. Burning with curiosity, Alice can’t help but follow the rabbit down the hole which leads to a long passageway – and a tiny door too small to get through.
So begins Alice’s adventures in the amazing world of Wonderland. In the pages that follow a strange liquid will shrink her to only ten inches tall; a curious cake will disappear before her eyes; a mad hatter will invite her to tea – and Alice will play a very dangerous game of croquet…
The character of Alice is based on Alice Liddell, the ten-year-old daughter of an academic at Christ Church College in Oxford, where author Lewis Carroll studied and taught. Carroll would tell Alice stories to entertain her: Alice begged him to write them out and he presented them to her in 1864. He was later persuaded to publish and, after further additions, the book as we know it today appeared in 1865, including the famous illustrations by John Tenniel.
Alice in Wonderland was Lewis Carroll’s first novel and its fantasy plot, humorous rhymes and brilliant use of nonsense was revolutionary. Nineteenth-century children’s writing usually served moral or educational purpose, but Alice was written firmly and purely for the amusement of children. Critical response was lukewarm, but the book was still a great success, and remains a hugely influential classic of children’s literature.
Alice appeals to adults as well as children and over the years readers and critics have found within it all manner of riddles, puzzles, mathematical concepts and references to Carroll’s famous and not-so-famous friends.
Lewis Carroll was the pen-name of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, born in 1832 in Cheshire in the north of England. His father, the local rector, came from a family of distinguished scholars and clergymen. Dodgson continued the academic family tradition and studied mathematics and theology, eventually becoming a mathematician at Oxford University.
He first began to write comic poetry and prose in the 1850s and had several pieces published in magazines, where he first began to use the name Lewis Carroll. In 1856 he met four-year-old Alice Liddell who was to inspire the book which made Dodgson’s name, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, published in 1865. The book was an immediate success, was translated into many languages and soon established itself as an English classic. Its sequel, Through the Looking-Glass, appeared in 1871. Their revolutionary combination of word-play, humour and nonsense had never been seen before in writing for children. His other great masterpiece of nonsense is the poem The Hunting of the Snark [1876], and other books for children including Phantasmagoria [1869] and Sylvie and Bruno [1889].
Charles Dodgson never married and remained at Oxford all his adult life, where he wrote several books on mathematics and logic as well as devising board games and brainteasers. He was also an expert photographer, famous for his portraits of children and many artistic personalities of the day. He died in 1898.
9/10 Its fantasy plot, humorous rhymes and brilliant use of nonsense was revolutionary.
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Alice's Adventures in Wonderland reader reviews
Ashu from India
Good book
9/10 [2019-11-20]
Kartik from India
I love this book and the review is wery nice, I like the review.
10/10 [2019-10-27]
Nimisha from India
It's a nice book with adventures.
8/10 [2019-07-07]
Pranjal from India
Thank you for taking the time to write this book, it really makes a difference and helps the readers to find their perfect book .
10/10 [2019-02-22]
Kunsang from Nepal
I love that book. It was intresting.
8/10 [2019-02-10]
Jennifer from U.S.A.
I loved the book so much I read it twice! It was amazing, some parts were confusing, but it was interesting and exciting. If you haven't already read it, you really should!
10/10 [2018-03-25]
HannaLore from UK
I found this book interesting! I know you should never judge a book by its cover, but it is really good from the front and the blurb too. This is never from reality but i wish it happened!
10/10 [2018-03-02]
Shruti from India
Very well ! I usually get bored by such books. But this one was nice, good better, best !
9/10 [2018-02-25]
Chloe from United Kingdom
Interesting book that shows no sense of reality but I believe that it is cleverly written.
8/10 [2017-12-07]
Sonika from Nepal
it was amazing and wonderful to read this.
10/10 [2017-10-17]
Ojesvi from India
This book is very interesting . I liked it very much.
9/10 [2017-06-03]
Ayush from India
This book is quite interesting.
10/10 [2017-05-25]
K from England
It was a bit confusing and the vocab wasn't very good. Also not that interesting...
7/10 [2017-02-23]
Shreya from India
It is quite an interesting book, I loved it.
9/10 [2016-12-25]
Gauru from India
It was a fantastic plot. I liked it as is a story of a small girl.
10/10 [2016-10-18]
Navi from UK
It's an awesome story, I loved it.
10/10 [2015-10-17]
Terence from England
Alice's adventures are so wondrous and magical, that the reader cannot help being drawn into a fantasy world. Lewis Carroll created many unforgettable characters and situations for Alice to encounter. Readers of all ages will be captivated by the book's charm and humour. Top quality literature.
What is the overall message of Alice in Wonderland?
One of the most significant themes in Alice in Wonderland is the importance of embracing your true self. Alice struggles with the expectations and constraints placed on her by society. As she navigates the strange and unpredictable world of Wonderland, she learns to embrace her unique qualities and strengths.
What's the dark story behind Alice in Wonderland?
Many believe the whole book is an allegory for drug use despite no evidence of Carroll trying illicit drugs. Some argue that the theories about sexuality say more about the theorists than Carroll, even though they claim Carroll's various relationships with children say otherwise.
Is Alice in Wonderland a good read?
It is considered to be one of the best examples of the literary nonsense genre. Its narrative course and structure, characters and imagery have been enormously influential in both popular culture and literature, especially in the fantasy genre.
What is the summary of Alice in Wonderland?
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll is a story about Alice who falls down a rabbit hole and lands into a fantasy world that is full of weird, wonderful people and animals. It is classic children's book that is also popular with adults. Personally, at 16, I found the book strange and uninteresting.