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Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
Pop-Up Adaptation by Robert Sabuda, Copyright 2003
Little Simon is a registered trademark of Simon & Shuster Inc. NYC, NY
ISBN 0-689-84743-2
Borrowed from the library of Katherine Wunner
The story begins with Alice being bored with her sister's book of all
words and no pictures. Then our Alice sees a curious thing - the first of many curious things. A white rabbit in dress clothes muttering to himself. Curious girl
that she is, Alice follows him
down the rabbit's hole. She falls and falls and falls until she reaches the bottom of
a deep well. The rabbit disappears through a tiny door into a beautiful garden. Alice finds the key to the door on a glass table but is
alas too big for the door. 
Magically a bottle appears "Drink me" and Alice is small enough to enter the garden.
Alas again - she has left the key on the table, out of her tiny reach. She finds a cake with raisins that spell "Eat me" and upon
eating grows enormously. Much, much too big to fit in the door, 
Alice
cries and cries until there is a large pool of tears and she finds herself
swimming in it along with other strange animals. A Lory, a Dodo, an Eaglet. After a Caucus Race which made them all very dry, Alice noticed the
White Rabbit again. She attempted to speak with him but instead startled the dear creature at which point he dropped
his fan and gloves. 
Dutiful child, Alice retrieves the gloves and follows after the rabbit.
In her excitement Alice fans herself and in so doing grows smaller and smaller. By the time she comes upon the White Rabbit, Alice is
his size and he, mistaking her for his servant MaryAnn, orders her into the house to fetch his gloves. While in the White Rabbit's
home Alice spies a bottle with no label but drinks it in hopes of being restored to her proper height. Not so! 
Alice grows and grows and grows until her arms and legs are projecting from all corners of the house. After some goings on,
the White Rabbit has his servant Bill the Lizard bombard the house with a barrowful of pebbles. The pebbles turn into little cakes
that Alice eats and thus returns to a small size. She hastily leaves the Rabbit's home and comes upon a
Caterpillar sitting on a mushroom smoking a hookah. 
"Who are you?" the Caterpillar asks.
And so begins a curious conversation. When Alice leaves the Caterpillar she has two bits
of mushroom taken from opposite sides - one to make her taller and one to make her smaller. But which is which? Tasting, she discovers that she quickly
grows so tall that she will have to send a telegram to her feet. 
A pigeon accuses her of being a serpent. Indignant, Alice
defends her honor and then nibbles herself smaller. Alice continues walking along until she comes to an
open field with a lovely cottage. Curious she nibbles her mushroom pieces until she is the correct size to approach.
As she does so Alice notices a frog dressed as a footman delivering a message 
to the
owner of the home. Alice chats with the Duchess's doorman - it is the Duchess's home - and is allowed to enter.
When Alice enters to find a rowdy scene indeed.
The Duchess is a rather large, ugly woman - so the story tells
- 
who is holding a crying baby who
looks remarkably like a pig. Her Cheshire Cat is by her feet. The Duchess is talking loudly to her cook who is noisily cooking,
clattering the pots and pans and using so much pepper that the air is a cloud. Achoo!
The Duchess begins singing to the howling baby, handling it quite roughly.
Seeing this treatment, Alice decides she must rescue the dear thing.
After leaving the Duchess's home with the baby in her arms, Alice looks down to discover that the baby
that looked like a pig had indeed turned into a pig. Oh my! Life is certainly curious here. Nevertheless, Alice continues
on her walk. 
the Cheshire Cat suddenly
appears in the tree top. "People do come and go quite quickly here." They chat and Alice learns that the next homes belong to The Mad Hatter and The March Hare. Which to visit? Does it matter since they are both mad?
Alice sets her feet towards the home of The March Hare and finds a long tea table set in front of the house.
A long tea table with three sitting at it - The March Hare, The Mad Hatter and The
Dormouse. Wonderful! Alice would love to have some tea.
"No room! No room." "But of course there's room." And so starts a very curious teatime of riddles and stories
and talk of the Queen of Hearts. After being insulted one too many times, Alice leaves the
tea party just as the March Hare and
the Mad Hatter attempt to stuff the Dormouse into the teapot. 
Alice walks for a while, thinking to herself
about the day's curious events. Suddenly she notices a beautiful garden - the same garden she saw through the tiny door. How wonderful!
At last she is where she had wanted to be all along! A large rose tree stood at the entrance to the garden, the roses on it were white.
There were three gardeners nervously working, painting the roses red.
"Oh my, Miss. If the Queen knew that these were white roses...Off with our heads!" And just then -
the Queen of Hearts appears in a procession - one in the procession was the White Rabbit. The three gardeners are taken away to
have their heads removed (Don't worry children. That really doesn't happen. The King always pardones those the Queen sentences.) and Alice is invited to play croquet with the Queen.
The mallets are flamingos, the balls hedgehogs and wickets are the soldiers who very deftly make sure
that the Queen's ball goes through the wicket and the other balls bounce out. 
The Cheshire Cat appears -
or should I say his head appears - and it causes quite a stir. "Off with its head" But its head is already off!
The game continues and the Queen wins. In the flush of victory
the Queen encourages Alice to meet the Mock Turtle and listen to his story. The Mock Turtle? "It's what Mock
Turtle Soup is made from." 
Alice learns all about the Mock Turtle's school days in the sea. The
Tortoise taught us. Oh my. Will these lessons never end!
What was I thinking? I'm so sorry. I forgot to tell you...Alice is escorted to the Mock Turtle by 
The Gryphon. At the end of the Mock Turtle's lesson,
Alice learns that The Trial is about to begin. What trial? The Knave of Hearts. She hurries along. The court room is packed with on-lookers.
The jury box filled with all sorts of creatures - most of which Alice had met during the day. The White Rabbit is the Herald of the trial. 
"The Queen of Hearts made some tarts, all on a summer's day. The Knave of Hearts, he stole those tarts and took them clean away."
Alice listened to the court proceedings. The Queen speaks, "Sentence first and then the verdict." To her surprise she is called as a
witness. However, in getting up to testify Alice topples over the
jury box with all its inhabitants. 
Oh my! Much to Alice's surprise, She had grown!
And was continuing to grow. "Rule Forty-two: All persons over a mile high must leave the court." Words fly back and forth and the Queen speaks the order for
Alice. "Off with her head!" To which Alice replies "You are nothing but a pack of playing cards!" 
The cards and creatures
all rush at Alice. As she flicks them off her face she realizes she is brushing away dry leaves. She is safely in her sister's arms 
taking
an afternoon nap. It was all a dream, a curious dream. And now it is truly teatime.