Customer Reviews

Walt Disney's Alice in Wonderland

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Disney's Alice in Wonderland, as told through the gorgeous art work of Mary Blair, makes for one very spectacular book! Mary Blair (1911-1978) was one of Disney's most brilliant conceptual designers, who contributed in the creations of such great film classics as Cinderella, Alice in Wonderland and Peter Pan. Mary Blair gave Disney 34 years of her gorgeous and vivid art, which will always stand out through her use of unbelievably vivid colors and her impressionistic art form.

Mary not only helped design these characters for these Disney classics, but she brought her unique art style to other children's books, advertisements, theatrical set designs and theme park attractions. Mary Blair remains one of the most respected artists in the history of Disney animation, and this book showcases her talent! In this book, you can see the beginnings of the Disney characters of Alice, the White Rabbit, the Mad Hatter and the Queen of Hearts. Mary's gorgeous impressionistic paintings of them show the forms that would take shape later on, in the film.

This book is the second of Disney's books showcasing the fantastic talents of Mary Blair. The first was published last year in 2007, Cinderella, and it is the most gorgeous treasure as well! I think you can still get this first edition here on Amazon from other dealers!

I am hoping Disney will publish Mary's art work that she did in creating the Peter Pan characters next year, so we will have all 3 of her major film contributions to Disney's characters in Alice, Cinderella and Peter Pan. For anyone who loves seeing the origins of the classic Disney characters in these early, gorgeous art forms, you will love this book on Alice in Wonderland by the unbelievably talented Mary Blair!

Our baby is too young to appreciate this book now, but I'm sure she will love it when she's a little older. The illustrations by Mary Blair are beautiful, and the accompanying story is well narrated.

I will be purchasing other books in the series.

We bought this book for my 3-year-old daughter after a recent trip to Disney World left her captivated with Alice in Wonderland. Mary Blair's artwork is bright and vivid and holds so many details. My daughter can spend a long time just flipping through the book and looking at the pictures.

Jon Scieszka's text captures the whimsy of wonderland and is the perfect length for a bedtime story. We loved this book so much we ordered Walt Disney's Cinderella by the same author/artist.

One of the reasons I purchased this book is because I'm a fan of Mary Blair's work in general and also Disney. Thumbing through, the images are beautiful and very indicative of Disney's film. However, when placed beside the text in this re-imaging of the tale, Blair's artwork makes little to no sense. Whereas I realize creating a book like this is a difficult task because only so much art was originally created for this film, I think it's very important that children in the age range suggested for this book have images to associate with.

When I read aloud about a Cheshire cat and there is only a small image of his head fading into a black background, it causes some confusion. When I make mention of the Queen of Hearts and she's not seen for the next three pages, but rather I'm looking at a castle and some very abstract playing cards, my nieces and nephews won't know what I'm talking about. When there are only two images of the White Rabbit and Alice is so desperately seeking, no images of the bottle she's drinking from and the door that she's standing in front of is not actually too small for her, it's a bit hard to understand.

Overall, this is a very nice book for maybe a collector of Disneyana products or a child who is very familiar with the film and its characters. I don't believe a 4 year old child would understand much of what was going on as the images are not very true to the text.

This is a great product and the service provided was good. I would highly recommend the item as a gift or for yourself as a collectable.

I gave this to my niece who is in first grade and she loves it. The illustrations by Mary Blair are not only beautiful but very detailed. The story is engaging and captivating. My niece saw the movie first and was excited to compare it to this book.

The Mary Blair illustrations are awesome. My daughter had fun comparing the movie to the book. We borrowed from the library and loved it so much, I had to buy it!

I'm a huge Mary Blair fan so naturally I wanted to get this book of her work on Alice in Wonderland. The book arrived in a timely fashion and was in perfect condition. It's also a fantastic picture book for kids. Thank you!

If I despised Lewis Carroll with all my heart, if the mere thought of his prose and poetry made my skin crawl in unmentionable places while bringing a cold sweat to my feverish brow -- if these were the case (which in fact they are most certainly not) I couldn't imagine a more fitting way to express such loathing than to defame his beloved Alice by producing a book such as this. Stripped of its soul (not to mention its heart and poetry) this pointless adaptation of Carroll's classic is presumably intended for children too young to read or understand the language of the original book -- whether this is a greater insult to Carroll himself or to potential young readers is debatable. The notion that modern children require classic literature to be dumbed down or sugar-coated for their consumption is nothing new. Disney alone has done it to everything from Shakespeare to Dickens and beyond -- granted, in many cases less dumbing than sugaring. But when it comes to a piece of literature that was written specifically for children (and not of the Grimm's variety), there is simply no excuse. This is a mess, plain and simple, from concept to execution. Skip this one and get the original The Annotated Alice: The Definitive Edition, which contains both 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' and 'Through the Looking-Glass & What Alice Found There', along with enough extras to keep you in thrall for a good long while.

If you're still looking for an Alice adaptation worthy of Carroll's original, I would recommend Alice in Verse: The Lost Rhymes of Wonderland.

If you are a fan of the Disney classic animated movie - skip this book. The illustrations are primitive and sloppy - nothing like the detailed and precise animation in the movie. They even left out my favorite character - the caterpillar!