The Alice App – A Book App That Transports You to Wonderland

A new way to experience the tale!

Online books are becoming more popular by the day, and while most adults read novels that are meant purely to be ingested by reading, book apps meant for younger folks tend to offer a bit more. Case in point is the newly revamped app for the iPad that features the whimsical tale of “Alice in Wonderland” in a way that most would not have imagined.

Created by award-winning artist and entrepreneur Emmanuel Paletz, The Alice App churns the classic tale written by Lewis Carroll and portrays it in a way that makes you feel you have fallen down a hole in the ground and are on the chase yourself to find the white rabbit and make sense of the ridiculous.

The app costs about $5, and for some it may seem pricey, but the experience you will get out of the app will be well worth the investment. The story is the exact same as you would find in a regular book version. However, what Paletz has done brings a richness and character to an already fantastic tale. The app shows two pages at a time, and for some pages there will be full page illustrations. Navigating from page to page, backward or forward, involves simple swipes from either the bottom left or right corners.

When you first download the app, it starts with a main screen from which you select narration options, sound settings, and read instructions on how to use the app. One special note to make is that every illustration has some hidden animation or game to play. The key is to tap away and find them. What is not so apparent to most adults, but something children will quickly discover, is that tilting the iPad to and fro brings additional surprises to the user. From the instructions page there is a special link for parents that takes you to the a website page with the privacy policy for the app, so you know the ins and outs of what is being collected in terms of data.

What is most appealing about The Alice App is the ability to resume from where you left off, and the ability to tap on the little green silk bookmark that hangs from the top middle of the screen to jump forward or go back to a particular page or chapter. It makes for easy exploration of the book for those who like random reading.

It took a few trial taps and swipes to fully understand how to use the app, but as an adult, that is to be expected. For instance, as soon as I made my way through a few chapters, I was not sure how to get back to the main menu to increase the volume of the narration. I looked for an icon, but could find none. Then I tapped on the bookmark and realized this was my steering wheel.