Press

What the critics say

Only Lewis Carroll has shown us the world upside down the way a child sees it, and has made us laugh as children laugh
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Precise, dream-like, subversive
- 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
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Without these two books in my childhood I doubt whether my imagination would have developed at all
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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