Annotation#4- Fantasy

After Alice by Gregory Maguire

Synopsis: We all know the story of Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll. Alice’s adventures have been depicted for over 100 years. The story that we are not so familiar with is the story of Ada, Alice’s friend. One day Ada decides to visit Alice as she grows tired of dealing with her drunk mother and ever preaching father. When she arrives at Alice’s home she discovers that Alice has disappeared. Upon looking for Alice, Ada  accidentally takes a wrong step and fall into the infamous Rabbit Hole. Ada and Siam (the boy who also falls into Wonderland begin there adventure looking for Alice and eventually run into well known characters such as the Mad Hatter and the Cheshire Cat while the community “above”in 1860’s England eventually realize that children are missing.

Appeals: This story takes place in the real world as well as Wonderland. The reader is able to see how people are reacting to Ada and Alice’s disappearances. The author does a great job in describing class structure, adolescence, and the Victorian world in itself. Our protagonist, Ada, is a very different character than Alice as she is clever and less likely to be bewildered by the characters who live in Wonderland.

Genre: Fantasy

Publication Date: October 27th, 2015

Pages: 288 pages

Charactistics:

• The author mixes fantasy with science as the character of Charles Darwin is in the story.
• The story is told from two different point of views. We see what is happening in Wonderland and in the real world.
• There are more “real” characters in this story than the original Alice in Wonderland.
•  Novel contains rather challenging vocabulary.

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• Never Never by Briana Shrum
• Letters to Zell by Camille Griep
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• Wendy Darling: Stars by Colleen Oakes