Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

Only Lewis Carroll has shown us the world upside down the way a child sees it, and has made us laugh as children laugh—Virginia Woolf

Precise, dream-like, subversive—Quentin Blake, Independent on Sunday

The clue to the enduring fascination and greatness of the Alice books lies in language. . .. It is play, and word-play, and its endless intriguing puzzles continue to reveal themselves long after we have ceased to be children—A. S. Byatt

Without these two books in my childhood I doubt whether my imagination would have developed at all—Kate Atkinson

“What is the use of a book” thought Alice “without pictures or conversation?” If you feel the same way, then you’ll love Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. It is full of good conversations. Alice talks to a pipe-smoking caterpillar and a mad hatter—Chris Riddell

So what makes these different to any other set of classics? In a moment of inspiration Random House had the bright idea of actually asking Key stage 2 children what extra ingredients they could add to make children want to read. And does it work? Well, put it this way…my 13-year-old daughter announced that she had to read a book over the summer holiday and, without any prompting, spotted The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas…and proceeded to read it! Now, if you knew my 13-year-old daughter, you would realise that this is quite remarkable. She reads texts, blogs and tags by the thousand – but this is the first book she has read since going to high school, so all hail Vintage Classics!—National Association for the Teaching of English