“I am not going down that rabbit hole,” I said firmly, shaking my head for emphasis, even though the person on the other line could not possibly see me.
After hanging up the phone, one of my boys asked “Are we getting a rabbit?”
I giggled and told him no, it was just an expression, like in Alice in Wonderland.
My son stared at me blankly and I realized: I hadn’t introduced any of my boys to Alice!
Alice in Wonderland is such a classic story, one that I just assumed my boys had encountered, even if it was in movie format. But they hadn’t yet! We corrected that pretty quickly with a viewing of the movie a few months ago.
But recently, we had a chance to read the original unabridged 1865 text of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by way of Alicewinks, which brings the story to life for a new generation.
Not only can you read the full story of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, but you can listen to each chapter being read, accompanied by animated illustrations. Each of the 12 chapters can be listened to in about 15 minutes: a perfect length to keep my children’s attention. They were hooked from the moment Alice fell down the rabbit hole and they could watch her journey down, down, down. Listening to the story of Alice in Wonderland in this way and having it come to life before their eyes kept my children engaged and asking for “just one more chapter, please, Mom!”
After watching the video, my boys can flip through the illustrations used in that chapter. All gorgeous illustrations from 12 different early 20th century artists, which means 12 different versions of Alice. We talked about why there are so many different Alice’s and my oldest made the connection that it’s like the books he reads that don’t have pictures: he has to come up with an idea of what the characters look like and that’s probably different than what someone else thinks they look like.
Before we’d listen to the next chapter, we went back and looked at the previous chapter’s illustrations to refresh our memories on what happened the last time we read the story.
Since the full text of each chapter is in Alicewinks, too, my oldest is reading it. He’s already heard the story and seen the illustrations, so knowing what is going on helps him when he gets stuck on a word. This feature makes Alicewinks great for multiple age groups: my two younger boys listening to the story and watching it come to life, my oldest reading. But all having a classic story captivate them through an interactive experience.
In celebration of the 150th Anniversary of Alice’s Adventure’s in Wonderland, Alicewinks brings the story’s classic illustrations to life for digital audiences through animated video and rich narration. To download this one of a kind iBook, visit iTunes.com/alicewinks
This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of Alicewinks. The opinions and text are all mine.