The Real Alice In Wonderland: A Role Model For The Ages

In the promotional material for their book, The Real Alice in Wonderland: A Role Model for the Ages, authors C.M. Rubin and Gabriela Rubin have put together a list of the Top 10 Things You Didn't Know About The Real Alice. This list kicks off with the list-defying entry - Alice was inspired by a real girl called Alice Liddell.

I find myself forced to deny the existence of a legitimate proportion of the population at which this entry might aim. Beyond that, a fact you have learned, if you didn't know it already, before opening the book, you are in store for not simply a history, but a journey.

Part historical account, part holiday scrapbook, part family album (the authors are related to Alice), part... school project?, this is a book that is difficult to pigeonhole. A quick glance will likely have people referring to it as a coffee-table book, and rightly so, but the book is also a kind of adventure itself.

Merging the history of Alice Liddell and Lewis Carroll (ok, Charles Dodgson) with the journey the mother-daughter authoring duo went on to learn everything they could, the result is a unique mix of objective interest and personal investment.

Filled with new and archival photos of locations integral to their lives, letters from Dodgson to Alice (and vice versa), much of the art and artistry that inspired and/or became part of the Wonderland universe, and much more, the book manages to not only share this grand adventure, but take you along for the ride as well.

There is bound to be more than enough interest in such a book based on the love of Alice in Wonderland alone, and the recent release of the new film won't hurt that at all. People have been falling in love with both Alice and her adventures for generations, and anything that so stunningly relates the real world and people that came together to create what has become such a literary and cultural icon doesn't need an additional "sell."

Nevertheless, as the title suggests, the book has one. Learning the details of the real Alice is obviously of interest, but the question you're bound to want an immediate answer to is, "Yes, but is she interesting?" Again, the title rather gives it away.

From their first meeting, to the fateful story that Alice insisted he write down, to the difficulties of a falling out between Dodgson and Alice's mother, it's all here.

You will pick up this book, if you do, because it has wonderful images of Alice herself, and the places where she grew up. You'll want to see the actual tree that would become the Cheshire Cat's, and so forth. You'll buy it, if you do, because you want to learn more about the little girl who inspired a classic story. But, you will fall in love with it, and you will, because you will fall down the rabbit hole all over gain, with a slightly different Alice, but one you will find you knew pretty well all along.

The title calls her, "A Role Model for the Ages," and I have rather strongly suggested her inspiring nature and/or some level of acceptance of this "role model" status, but I haven't given you much of an idea why. I leave it to you to venture down that particular rabbit hole for yourself. Mainly, because if Alice (either of them) has taught us anything, it is that no one else can do it for you.

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Stay tuned, as I will be giving a copy of the book away with my Blu-Ray review of Alice in Wonderland.

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About Marc Eastman

Marc Eastman is the owner and operator of Are You Screening? and has been writing film reviews for over a decade, and several branches of the internet's film review world have seen his name. His reviews have brought him personal praise from the director of a major motion picture, and have been used as required reading in a course at a major University. These priceless rewards, along with just bags of cash, keep him from straying from freelance writing. He is also a member of The Broadcast Film Critics Association and The Broadcast Television Journalists Association.

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