Nobody really knows what makes a children’s books popular and why some don’t catch on. A book that has stayed relevant for over a century is Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Find out why that is so as well as reading a short summary of the novel!
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland Summary
Alice is sitting by a riverbank and is bored out of her mind when out of nowhere she sees a white rabbit with a pocket watch pass her by commenting that he is late. Curiosity gets the best of Alice and she follows the rabbit down a rabbit hole.
That leads her to a room where she is encounters a tiny door and a tiny key. In the room, Alive finds a bottle that says drink me and she shrinks as a result. Now she is able to open the small door and follow the white rabbit.
But the effects of the potion does not stop and Alice keeps shrinking as a result. This makes Alice cry and she gets mistaken for a maidservant and tells her to go to the house where she finds another potion and she drinks that also. This one makes her bigger but like the first potion, she keeps growing.
Other creatures Alice meets include a caterpillar smoking a hookah that makes her face her current identity crisis. She also meets the Duchess and the Chesire Cat. Alice gets imprisoned and is put on trial. Will Alice be freed and return home or will the Duchess keep her locked up?
Commentary
First published in 1865, the novel has remained in the mainstream ever since. There are numerous movies and adaptations of the popular children’s book. The idea for the book came when Lewis went on a boat ride with three little girls and told them the story of Alice in 1862.
The novel has been translated into 174 languages and has never been out of print. Those two facts are ridiculous and beyond impressive. You can find this story on many forms such as screen, radio, art, ballet, opera, musicals, theme parks, board games, and video games. At this point, it is safe to say this story is almost universal.
What makes Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland great is that it is conceived for a child’s mind but told by an adult so it also appeals to them. It is a wonderful book about wild adventures that children daydream about and adults can remember when they also used to do as a kid.
Conclusion
Reading this book makes you remember what it felt like to be a kid when the world was limitless. Maybe that’s why adults keep coming back to this book throughout the years. There’s a reason why The Chronicles of Narnia and Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland have become classics and something most children end up reading at least once.
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