Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland: A Coloring Book & Audiobook Review

This beautiful coloring book, based on the original drawings by John Tenniel for Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, invites you to draw and bring color to Wonderland as you read along with some of your favorite characters!

 

The pairing of iconic illustrations and quotations from Lewis Carroll’s original text offers a fun way to explore scenes from Wonderland and bring your own playful imagination to this classic story.

 

Publisher: Silver Dolphin Books | Release Date: 3/29/2016| Source: Publisher

I’m a massive Alice in Wonderland fan, so there was definitely a happy Snoopy dance going on when this arrived in the post.

 

This is a nice sized coloring book, which allows the images to be a bit larger than your standard adult coloring books so kids may enjoy this one as well as adults. Yet there are also some wallpaper type additions that will be a bit more time consuming and tedious.

 

I really enjoyed that some of the images were the original drawings by John Tenniel but at the same time, because they are the original drawings that appeared in the book, some are heavily shaded. It would have been nice if they had lightened some of the shading up a bit.

 The paper is a medium thickness. It’s not thin like printer paper but it’s not a heavy cardstock either. Most images appear on a white background but some are on a black background, which allows the colors to pop.

 

The problem I had with this book was the pages have an almost satin feel to them, which made finding a medium a bit hard. Colored pencils do work, but not all brands. I tried standard Crayola Colored Pencils and while they did lay color down on the page, it was very streaky and failed to blend. I ended up switching over to Staedtler’s and the pencils still streaked, just not as bad. It was actually fine-liner pens that worked the best on this.

 

I also tried watercolor pencils and wasn’t too pleased with the results. Because the paper had a satin feel, the pigment of the watercolors didn’t have anything to grab on to.

 

Another problem that I had was that some of the pictures get lost within the spine of the book. They really should have left a border around the pictures. Also, the images are printed on both sides of the paper making it impossible to use markers on.

 

Overall, the images are nice and I loved the quotations, it was just finding medium I was happy coloring with.

 Golden Globe nominee Scarlett Johansson (Lost in Translation, Girl with a Pearl Earring) brings a palpable sense of joy and exuberance to her performance of Lewis Carroll's enduring classic Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. From the White Rabbit and Mad Hatter to the Cheshire Cat and Queen of Hearts, she imbues each madcap character with a distinct voice and personality that will leave a lasting impression long after the adventure is over.

 

One hundred and fifty years after its original publication, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland remains one of the most widely read, deconstructed, referenced, and reinterpreted works of Western fiction. It tells the story of the young and imaginative Alice, who grows weary of her storybook, one "without pictures or conversations", and follows a hasty hare underground - to come face to face with a host of strange and fantastic characters.

This actually came as a free download with the Alice's Adventures in Wonderland coloring book that I received for review. I’ve always loved Alice in Wonderland and Scarlett Johansson truly brought this audiobook alive. Yet I was slightly disappointed she opted against using a British accent, but it was still a lovely listen that children and adults will enjoy.