MinaLima Interactive Classics: Alice in Wonderland
Today’s post provides an update to both my Alice in Wonderland collection and an earlier post I made on the wonderful interactive children’s classics series that is being produced by MinaLima, the creative duo behind most of the fabulous Harry Potter graphic design materials.
Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland is the 2019 addition to this series, and it combines both Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland as well as the sequel Through the Looking Glass.
The illustrations for Alice, our inquisitive heroine who falls through a rabbit hole and into the whimsical world of Wonderland, recast her as a brightly dressed red-head. The white rabbit is quite sweet rather than frantic, while the Mad Hatter and the Queen of Hearts look suitably eccentric and demented.
Of course one of the main distinguishing features of this series is the interactive elements each volume includes. This volume includes Alice with extendable arms and legs after she encounters the Eat Me cake and Drink Me potion, a version of the White Rabbit’s house that opens up to reveal a giant Alice, a delightful Cheshire cat with a pull tab so you can make the cat disappear leaving only its grin behind, decorative letters and poetry that cleverly play with typography, a foldout board to play looking glass chess, and various other movable characters from the book.
As usual for all the volumes in this series, the book is sewn bound and surprisingly robust although I wouldn’t give it to small children as the movable parts must be treated with respect. The movable mechanisms also come with protective sheets which you can keep in the book if you want to protect them, although I typically take mine out as it makes them easier to read. The one caveat for this that I’d mention is was the volvelle or the twisting Humpty Dumpty was very stiff in my copy and it arrived new with the covering flap detached. Fortunately, it was easy to fix with a spot of glue, but it may be worth double checking the mechanisms if you are purchasing in a shop
Overall, it’s another gorgeous addition to the series. If you’d like to check out the other books in the MinaLima collection, I’ll add a link below to my review, as well as to my Alice in Wonderland bookshelf tour if you’re an Alice aficionado.
1 Comment