Review by New York Times Review
BEING READ TO is one of life's best small luxuries, but it was until very recently reserved for children and a few select adults. Now any grown-up with a smartphone has tens of thousands of audiobooks readily at her disposal in the car, gym, kitchen or bed. The appeal of listening to a book is still, however, much entangled with deep memories of slipping under a parent's arm to have a story unfolded for you in a beloved voice. Is it any wonder, then, that the most celebrated audiobook narrators - in particular, Jim Dale, who has read the Harry Potter series for at least three generations of fans - acquire their own devout followings? The peculiar intimacy of modern audiobook narration (with earbuds, the narrator's voice seems to emanate from inside the listener's head) intensifies the old association with cozying up with Mom or Dad and a bedtime book. These performers may be unknown to the culture at large, but among the initiated they are adored; they could teach psychotherapists a thing or two about transference. Now that technology has fostered an audiobook boom (in the most recent figures, unit sales were up 20 percent between 2013 and 2014, and a vast majority of these were digital downloads rather than CDs), more traditional celebrities have been enlisted to read to us. Audible, the leading purveyor of downloadable audiobooks, has boosted the production of such projects, hiring movie stars like Kate Winslet and Colin Firth to narrate classics like Zola's "Thérèse Raquin" and Graham Greene's "The End of the Affair." But narrating a novel is a specialized skill, particularly when the text has dialogue from a wide variety of characters. The best narrators - Simon Vance and Katherine Kellgren are two names to conjure with - get called upon to do things dramatic actors rarely attempt, such as speak like someone much older or younger than themselves or as a member of the opposite sex. Furthermore, the descriptive language of many novels doesn't resemble natural speech. Intelligibly pronouncing the wayward sentences of Faulkner or the clause-dense prose of Henry James surpasses the capabilities of many actors. Some of these new celebrity narrations have been sublime, like Susan Sarandon's reading of Carson McCullers's "The Member of the Wedding." Others (Jake Gyllenhaal's "The Great Gatsby," for example) are uninspired. But it hardly matters how lackluster a celebrity narration may be; these recordings always seem to outsell their competitors and win gushing customer reviews, testimony to the fact that glamour trumps skill, even when you can't see the famous face reading to you. Bah! This makes even less sense when the book being narrated is for children. A case in point is Audible's recent production of Lewis Carroll's "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland," read by Scarlett Johansson. Not that Johansson's performance is substandard; she acquits herself very well with a challenging text, creating distinct characterizations for such icons as the White Rabbit and the Mad Hatter as well as an excellently feline Cheshire Cat. Her narration has its oddities - she gives some of the characters English accents, but not Alice, despite her use of Victorian figures of speech that sound weird when delivered in an American accent, and Johansson's working-class characters, even the rustics, all drift into Cockney. But these are quibbles, not serious reservations. Still, this recording doesn't have a pressing reason to exist. There are already dozens of recordings of "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland," including one narrated by Jim Dale. I'd be surprised if anyone has raised a child under 8 who would be more thrilled to be read to by ScarJo than by Dale, but if such parents exist, surely they wouldn't be interested in "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" in the first place? You'd think they'd have briskly moved the kids along to the "Gossip Girl" books. No, Johansson is clearly a narrator choice pitched to celebrity-dazzled adults, and to be fair, "Alice" is a book whose appeal defies age. Personally, I'd prefer to hear it read by someone more adept at the accents, and besides Dale, the options along those lines include such titans as Christopher Plummer, Alan Bennett and Fiona Shaw. Also Michael York, but I'd be leery of that last one: York's reading of "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe" suffers from the forced, unctuous "Hello, children!" tone so often used by people who don't really like or understand kids but have somehow gotten saddled with the task of amusing them. This and other forms of hamminess are problems that plague the narration of children's audiobooks. A rule of thumb for anyone reading aloud to kids, whether there's a microphone in front of your face or not: Children prefer that you give it to them straight. This is why they have always gravitated toward the most unexpurgated editions of the Brothers Grimm fairy tales they can get their hands on, despite adult efforts to bowdlerize the sex and violence. Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm did not conceive of their original collection of folk tales - published in 1812 and gathered from sources ranging from older relatives and artsy friends to servants - as a book to be read by children. When it became a best seller commandeered for nursery use, the tales drew criticism as inappropriate material for tender ears, so the brothers issued increasingly cleanedup editions. But there remains something untamable about these enigmatic stories of cruel parents, brave tailors, cannibalistic witches, enchanted princes and princesses, and big bad wolves. A NEW RECORDING of selected tales from the Brothers Grimm produced by Listening Library uses the 1884 English translation by Margaret Hunt, which, rather like Baby Bear's porridge, falls somewhere between the unexpurgated and the totally neutered. Rapunzel has twins by the prince she somehow manages to take as a "husband" even though there was no priest up in that tower, but the wicked stepsisters do cut off a heel and a toe to fit into Cinderella's glass slipper, filling the shoe up with telltale blood. Each tale gets a different narrator, chosen from the starry firmament of the audiobook world: Vance, Kellgren, Dale, January LaVoy and Davina Porter among them, as well as Roy Dotrice, a legend for his performance of George R. R. Martin's series "A Song of Ice and Fire," the source for HBO's "Game of Thrones." Dotrice delivers the only biblically themed tale in the bunch and sounds like the voice of the Lord himself. Surprisingly, the most "acted" tales in this collection are not the most effective. Narrators like Vance and LaVoy, so skilled at crafting individual voices for diverse casts of characters, tend to sound as if they're overdoing it on fairy tales. The cackling witches, sneering dwarves, imperious queens and booming giants of folklore are already caricatured enough; vocal embellishments only flatten them further. The more subdued and nuanced readings here - from Grover Gardner, Alfred Molina and Bahni Turpin, among others - have greater power. That's because the only real character in any fairy tale is the teller, a voice transcending time and history. You could call it the voice of humanity itself, but on any given evening in childhood, it's also the voice of the human being you love best. Johansson creates distinct characterizations for the White Rabbit and the Mad Hatter as well as an excellently feline Cheshire Cat. LAURA MILLER is a books columnist for Slate and the author of "The Magician's Book: A Skeptic's Adventures in Narnia."
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [June 16, 2016]
Review by Booklist Review
Gr. 4^-6, younger for reading aloud. There is no end to the available editions of Alice, of course, but here is one worth having. It is in a nice big format, with an exquisite typeface, easy to read and to hold in the lap. It has a genial and erudite introduction by Leonard Marcus, with a bit of biography of Carroll and some Alice publishing history, but, most of all, there are unusual, engrossing illustrations. Morell has taken the original Tenniel images, placed them in collage with realia, and photographed the resultant construction in black-and-white. The artifact of the book is used to great effect: the hole the White Rabbit descends is cut into a large book; the Tenniel caterpillar and Alice peering over the mushroom's edge poke up from the pages of a book in a swirl of smoke; the tea party table is a big old book with a checkerboard cover. This edition illuminates the familiar story in ways that point up its essential, strange "magick." --GraceAnne A. DeCandido
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Reader Reynolds buoyantly leads listeners down the rabbit hole and into the topsy-turvy world of Carroll's Wonderland. When the young Alice follows a waistcoat-wearing rabbit holding a pocket watch, she finds herself in a fantastical world of talking mice, disappearing cats, hookah-smoking caterpillars, fish-headed footmen, and babies who turn into pigs. She shrinks smaller than a mouse and grows tall as a tree, participates in a mad tea party, plays croquet using flamingos for mallets, and runs afoul of the ill-tempered Queen of Hearts, whose cry of "Off with their heads!" seems to be the answer to most anything. It is a madcap, nonsensical entertainment, and Reynolds leaps into this tale's telling with enthusiastic aplomb. Fully embracing the material, Reynolds delivers the author's whimsical prose, poetry, and quirky characters with just the right touch of theatricality: bigger than life, but not completely over-the-top. It is a fine-tuned, enjoyable performance that allows the wonder of Wonderland to shine. (Dec.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by School Library Journal Review
Gr 2-5-An oversized book containing 12 full-page illustrations, one per chapter, with various smaller pictures of story elements peppered throughout, similar to the layout and design Zwerger used in The Wizard of Oz (North-South, 1996). The pictures are done in muted watercolors with very simple lines. Despite the flawless artistry evident in the work, there is something missing from Zwerger's Alice, and that would appear to be Alice herself. The child is clearly seen full-face in only a single illustration, that of the mad tea party, and then her facial expression is blank and disinterested. Otherwise, she is merely glimpsed: in the distance, looking down, disappearing from the page, and in some cases headless. The illustration of Alice after she has drunk the liquid causing her to grow shows only her cramped knees. Carroll's Alice is a feisty participant in her adventures, but Zwerger portrays her more as a sleepwalker, giving readers no opportunity to see how she is reacting to the events around her, be they bizarre, nightmarish, or humorous. While adults may find the book interesting from a visual standpoint, either the original artwork by John Tenniel or Michael Hague's charming version (Holt, 1995), which has literally double the number of illustrations, will have more child appeal.-Grace Oliff, Ann Blanche Smith School, Hillsdale, NJ (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Horn Book Review
Two splendid new interpretations by world-class illustrators. Oxenbury's fat volume, printed on sturdy stock and bound to survive for generations, has invitingly large type, wide margins, and a generosity of illustrations, including full-color double-page spreads that open wondrously flat, color vignettes, and additional sketches throughout. Oxenbury delineates the story's humor with a gentle hand. The Mad Hatter is part Simple Simon, part Chaplin's endearing Little Tramp; the pedantic White Rabbit furry and pink-eared; even the Duchess and Queen are rotund and marshmallow soft. Alice, a contemporary child with tousled yellow hair, wears sneakers and a sleeveless blue shift revealing bare legs. From her wide eyes to her youthful posture, this Alice is a figure that expresses the innocence that goes with the unquenchable curiosity the author gave her, though it's a bit at odds with her logical, argumentative side.Still, Oxenbury's illustrations have a sweetness of tone and an amiable spirit that especially recommend this edition for precocious younger listeners as well as for children in the middle grades. With somewhat larger pages and only half as many of them, Lisbeth Zwerger's Alice has some daunting expanses of unillustrated type. And yet this edition has another kind of power: where Oxenbury has created a magical world with funny, fabulous creatures and inviting landscapes, Zwerger invokes a surreal dreamland virtually devoid of background and with few details; yet its ambiance is so intensely realized that it inspires the reader's own imagination. Her sleek, brown-haired Alice, demure (despite her bright red hose) in a high-necked dress and dark vest, is a solemn, contemplative child. If Oxenbury's Alice is Carroll's ""child of the pure unclouded brow,"" Zwerger has her ""dreaming eyes of wonder""; and she's the one who looks ready and able to counter the mad quips of Wonderland's inhabitants with a child's relentless logic. In Zwerger's dreamy world, everything is disassociated: characters gaze into space rather than at each other; odd details are tucked here and there in the text like so many grins without their Cheshire cats; even the cups at the Mad Tea Party stand separate and solitary. Yet this apparent randomness of images and their placement-like the surreal quality of a dream-is actually extraordinarily purposeful. Zwerger's full-page paintings, especially, are exquisitely composed, with unexpected vantage points to give us dynamic new views of the events. Here's an Alice to use with young adults, and beyond; like the book itself, these illustrations open doors to many levels of creative interpretation. (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Girl falls down a rabbit hole, cries buckets, has a spot of bother about size, plays some croquet, and wakes up in time for tea. The quintessential Victorian children's classic, Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland has been gloriously re-envisioned by pop-up master Sabuda. The bizarre settings and rude creatures of Wonderland burst out with every turn of the page, starting with an ingenious peep-show rabbit hole and ending with an explosion of cards. She's a familiar Alice; Sabuda, while paying homage to original illustrator Sir John Tenniel, uses vibrant colors, thick black outlines, and foil to create a work that is uniquely his. The text is abridged with most of the nonsense poetry left out; perhaps this engaging version will send a few new fans to the original. Carroll, no slouch in the paper-engineering department himself (he designed a disappearing Cheshire Cat stamp case), would be pleased. (Picture book. All ages) Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
