Books Similar To Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

Books Similar To Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

From cinema and television to comic strips and live performances, there can be no doubt about the influence of the 1865 Lewis Carroll classic, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Even though it is part of the literary nonsense genre, this timeless tale has proven to have lasting appeal to both adults and children. The book opens with a bored girl named Alice following a white rabbit down a rabbit hole where, after a long fall, she finds herself in Wonderland. Strangely enough, the book was not an immediate hit with critics, but quickly gained more popularity as time went on. These days, it is still a beloved classic, so here are a few other books that are similar to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.

Through the Looking-Glass

by Lewis Carroll

Through The Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll

The most similar book to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There, which is the direct sequel written by the same author. This time she uses a mirror to enter a world where everything is reversed from the way it works in our world. Alice runs into a few familiar faces, such as the Red Queen, but instead of the playing cards motif of the first book, this one draws inspiration from chess.

The Looking Glass Wars

by Frank Beddor

The Looking Glass Wars by Frank Beddor

The Looking Glass Wars by Frank Beddor use the characters from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and even features Lewis Carrol as a character. The novels in this series treats the original Lewis Carrol novel as a myth and uses the fact that Wonderland is actually real as its basis. Alyss Heart, who is the heir to the throne of Wonderland, barely escapes with her life when her murderous aunt murders Alice's parents and steals the crown. Allys ends up in Victorian London, where she tells her story to an aspiring author named Lewis Carroll, but unfortunately he gets it all wrong. Alice's only hope of reclaiming her place is to reunite with her bodyguard, Hatter Madigan and return to Wonderland in order to face her Aunt.

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

by L. Frank Baum

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum was published a few years after Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, but also shares a few similar themes. The protagonist of the tale is a young farm girl named Dorothy, who like Alice, ends up in a magical land. However, unlike Alice, who willingly went down a rabbit hole, Dorothy ended up in Oz after a cycle swept her up along with her dog from their home in Kansas. Although L. Frank Baum didn't find Carroll's plots very coherent, he did find inspiration from the fact that child readers could identify with a protagonist who is also a child. In addition, Baum liked the images accompanying the text in Carroll's book, which is something he also incorporated into his own novel. The book was a success and Baum ended up writing numerous sequels, although the original still remains the most famous.

Coraline

by Neil Gaiman

Coraline by Neil Gaiman

Another book that has received many comparisons to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is the modern classic, Coraline, by Neil Gaiman. The novella was published in 2002 and was awarded both a Hugo Award as well as a Nebula Award and Bram Stoker Award. The book is a bit darker in tone than Alice, but follows the same theme of a young girl stepping into a world that is different from her own. Coraline discovers this world when she moves into an old house with her parents and finds a small door that has seemingly been bricked up, but actually leads to the "Other World." Coraline goes to the other world which appears to be identical to her own world, but inhabited by a "Other Mother" and "Other Father." Coraline is tempted to stay with them as everything appears to be better than in her own world, but soon finds how dangerous it really is.

Abarat

by Clive Barker

Abarat by Clive Barker

Clive Barker is known for his horror novels, but in 2002 he released a fantasy novel called Abarat, that is primarily aimed at young adults. The heroine of the novel is a teenage girl, named Candy Quackenbush, who leaves school one day after an argument with her teacher and ends up in the mysterious archipelago of Abarat. Candy discovers that Abarat consists of twenty-five different islands and that each one of them occupies a different hour of the day. Abarat was connected to her own world once upon a time, but this ended when Abaratian authorities destroyed the harbour. Candy also learns that Abarat is experiencing a crisis and that she may be the one to save it. Abarat was followed by two sequels, Abarat: Days of magic, Nights of War, and Abarat, Absolute Midnight.

Heartless

by Marissa Meyer

Heartless by Marissa Meyer

Marissa Meyer made a name for herself by taking classic fairy tales, such as Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood, Rapunzel as well as Snow White, and giving them a modern twist for new audiences. With her 2016 novel, Heartless, she took on Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, but made the Queen of Hearts the protagonist. However, the story takes place long before she became the terror who Alice faced in her adventures. In this novel she is still known as Catherine, a talented baker who wants nothing more than to open a shop with her best friend. However, she has caught the eye of the King of Hearts and seem to be destined to become his wife, much to the delight of her mother. Then, Catherine meets and falls in love with the mysterious court joker, Jest, and despite the danger it poses to both of them, they engage in a secret courtship.

Glen Dawson - A Satirical Wake-up Call
FEATURED AUTHOR - After graduating from Duke University, Glen Dawson owned and operated a flexible packaging manufacturing plant for 23 years. Then, he sold the factory and went back to school to get his Master's degree in biostatistics from Boston University. When he moved to North Carolina, he opened an after-school learning academy for advanced math students in grades 2 through 12. After growing the academy from 30 to 430 students, he sold it to Art of Problem Solving. Since retiring from Art of Problem… Read more