Title: The POP Wonderland Series – Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
Published by: Dark Horse Books
Illustrated by: POP
Adaptated from: Lewis Carroll – Alice in Wonderland
Adaptation by: Michiyo Hayano
Pages: 40 Pages
Misc Comments: Hard Cover, Landscape Dimensions.
Price: $US 16.99, may be more expensive if purchased from Australia…. I shall not say how much I spent since thankfully, Borders did a recent price drop on this series.
Age Group: I would say around the 6-8 years old bracket… give or take a year or two.
Hold on Sam…. you are reviewing a kids book? Yes, that is right, when I have a bit of spare money to spend on books, I don’t always like purchasing manga or a novel so I try something new, such as an artbook or in this case…. a childrens book. This review is aimed at parents, so there will be no mention of POP’s other works outside of the POP Wonderland series.
The POP Wonderland series is a series of books that were originally released by POP to deliver high quality picture books to certain childrens tales. Whilst I only have Alice in Wonderland on me, the other titles are Little Red Riding Hood, Thumbelina and Cinderella. For my full review of this title, please read on.
Alice was sitting in a field reading when a white rabbit scampered by. She didn’t know what was odder: that the rabbit was running on its hind legs, wearing a jacket, and carrying a pocket watch, or that it was talking, shouting, “I’m late! I’m late!” From the moment she decided to follow the rabbit into his rabbit hole, Alice was transported to a fantastical place called Wonderland, where anything was possible. All of the familiar characters are here: the Hatter, the March Hare, the Cheshire Cat, the Caterpillar, and the wicked Queen of Hearts.
– Taken from the Dark Horse Books website.
Alice in Wonderland is a book series most children would have been exposed to sometime in their early youth. Whether it is studying it in the early grades of school, reading it as a book itself, watching the classic disney adaptation of the book or more recently, the 3D version of Alice in Wonderland starring Johnny Depp. This follows the storyline of the original version, and whilst I haven’t read the book for almost a decade, I am certain that it follows the storyline well.
The storyline is portrayed more through the visual stimulation then the written storyline, however each of the pages have a few sentences on each outlining the next part of Alice’s adventures. The sentences are clear, grammatically correct for the most part and use simple words to get the meaning across. It uses a variety of different verbs to describe the image, and it would be a good means for children to increase their vocabulary and identifying words to parts of a picture. Be warned that it is not a single sentence to every page, but may include up to a paragraph per page.
Image taken from the preview page on the Dark Horse Website.
I will be honest, POP would remain close to the top on my list of favorite Japanese artists. Whilst I am sure a lot of parents wouldn’t know of them outside of this series (and I wouldn’t really encourage parents to go looking, since their work caters to a variety of different age groups), for their first break into the english market, it is a perfect series for them to use. There is not a single page which is empty of some art and with the exception of one page which looks like Alice was photoshopped on (Call me picky), I would have to say that this is a much more visually stimulating picture book then what I read as a kid.
I believe that children will like the cute art placed on every page, and that the storyline complements it well. If you are willing to spend a little bit more money for a picture book and your child likes the tales of Alice in Wonderland, Little Red Riding Hood and so forth, then this may be a great series to add to your collection (Of course, I haven’t bought picture books in a long time, so this may be average price for all I know)!
For further information, you can visit the English publishers website here. Their other titles in the POP Wonderland series can be found here, here and here. As this is a children’s book and I don’t have criteria for a book like this, no numerical review will be given to it, however I will say it is a good series.
