Lewis Carroll unlocked imaginations all over the world when he dreamed up Alice, the Mad Hatter, the Queen of Hearts, the Cheshire Cat, and the whole cast of characters in Alice in Wonderland.

Carroll’s creative masterpiece turns 150 this fall, and NYPL is celebrating with a major exhibition—and, of course, with book recommendations.

We asked our library experts to name books that remind them of Alice in Wonderland, whether it’s characters who have to make red pill/blue pill kinds of decisions or settings with a similar fantastical feel.

Children

Coraline, by Neil Gaiman, tells the story of a young girl who finds a doorway that leads to another world parallel to her own. Initially intrigued by what appears to be an improved version of the world she lives in, Coraline soon learns she is in danger when it turns out this new world is not what it seems. —Christina Lebec, Bronx Library Center

 

 

 

 

The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of her Own Making, for the deliciously curlicue language, curious but meaningful characters, and fabulously entertaining, well-thought-out journey. —Jill Rothstein, Andrew Heiskell

 

 

 

 

 

The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster captures that same “anything-can-happen” joie de vivre. Milo, who was always bored (until now), has fantastical and frightening adventures in places like Dictionopolis, Digitopolis, the Mountains of Ignorance, and he even takes a jump to the Island of Conclusions. —Rebecca Dash Donsky, 67^th Street

 

 

 

 

A Wrinkle in Time by Madeline L’Engle. Teenager Meg Murry is terrified when her father, a brilliant scientist, disappears. Desperate to find him, Meg enlists the help of three strange women, her kid brother, and their dog. Together, they travel through space and time to find her dad. —Arielle Landau, Digital Experience

 

 

 

 

Charlotte Sometimes by Penelope Farmer. Charlotte Makepeace has gone off to boarding school. In a strange turn of fate she is transported back to 1918, waking up as “Clare”—a girl with a different sister, a different home life, a different identity. She is haunted by what is expected of Clare, of living up to Clare, while at the same time making room for ‘Charlotte’ in this strange world. Throughout the book Charlotte/Clare not only gradually learns to enjoy herself in this new world, but begins build a relationship between past and present, between herself and the strange contexts to which she suddenly finds herself thrown into. —Andrew Fairweather, Seward Park

 

 

Young Adults

Alice in Zombieland by Gena Showalter tells the story of Alice a girl who fights zombies to take revenge for the murder of her family. —Lilian Calix, Hamilton Grange

 

 

 

 

 

 

The narrator of Placebo Junkies by J.C. Carleson is a "professional lab rat." By undergoing a host of experimental medical procedures, Audie puts herself through unimaginable physical torture for cash paid out by shady researchers and immoral drug companies. As you follow her down the rabbit hole, you begin to wonder how she can survive the grueling extra rounds of experiments… and how her unbelievable story can possibly end. —Gwen Glazer, Readers Services

 

 

 

Splintered by A.G. Howard. Alyssa believes she is mentally ill, until she finds out that Wonderland is real and she must past a series of tests to save her family from a terrible curse. —Lilian Calix, Hamilton Grange

 

 

 

 

 

Graphic Novels

For younger readers looking for that “down-the-rabbit-hole” feel, Doug TenNapel’s graphic novel Ghostopolis is a cool place to start. It tells the tale of a kid who tumbles down into the land of ghosts and must figure out who is good and who is evil, while trying to get back to the land of the living. TenNapel’s visual style is eye-catching and darkly beautiful. —Caitlyn Colman-McGaw, Young Adult Programming

 

 

 

 

In the Batman universe, Grant Morrison’s Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth is heavily influenced by Alice in Wonderland, with direct quotes and disturbing imagery. —Carmen Nigro, Milstein Division

 

 

 

 

 

Adult Fiction

When Alice timidly asks, “Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?”, the grinning Cheshire Cat mischievously replies, “That depends a good deal on where you want to get to.” As in Carroll’s classic, the cats in Haruki Murakami’s imaginative Kafka on the Shore are equally baffling, beguiling and wise. —Miriam Tuliao, Selection Team

 

 

 

 

 

Alice I Have Been by Melanie Benjamin is a fictional account of the life of Alice Liddell, the muse of Lewis Carroll (a.k.a. Charles Dodgson). As she turns 81, Alice looks back on her life as a privileged little girl living in Oxford and then as a young woman, wife and mother. It’s a world of society balls, romances, a world at war, tragedy and heartbreak. But in the beginning, she is just a determined little girl asking a shy family friend to write down his stories of an impatient rabbit, a grumpy queen, a Mad Hatter, and a grinning cat. —Anne Rouyer, Mulberry Street

 

 

Fantasy & Science Fiction

Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World may be Haruki Murakami’s most otherworldly book which parallels a Kafka-esque Tokyo with a fantasy other-world. Other classic “off-in-wonderland” novels include the Wizard of Oz series by L. Frank Baum and Chronicles of Narnia by CS Lewis, and JM Barrie’s Peter Pan. —Carmen Nigro, Milstein Division

 

 

 

 

Abarat by Clive Barker is the story of Candy Quackenbush, from Chickentown, Minnesota, who travels to the parallel world of Abarat. Abarat is a world of islands, one for each hour of the day (plus a last, “25th hour”), filled with odd and sinister characters. The book is lushly illustrated with Barker’s own paintings. —Kay Menick, Schomburg Center

 

 

 

 

How about The Mirror of Her Dreams by Stephen R. Donaldson? Terisa surrounds herself with mirrors in order to reflect herself constantly; a way to fill an otherwise empty life. Then Geraden from the land of Mordant appears. In Mordant, all magic revolves around mirrors and this leads Geraden to believe Terisa is a magician of supreme power. She goes through the mirror and into a world of intrigue, magic, and where women are second-hand residents. —Joshua Soule, Spuyten Duyvil

 

 

 

To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis. Ned is an over-worked, time-travelling restorer, shuttling back and forth from the 21^st century to the 1940s looking for a ugly Victorian-era tchotchke called the bishop’s bird stump. It’s needed as part of a restoration project of the Coventry Cathedral which was destroyed in a Nazi air raid. When his co-worker Verity, inadvertently brings something back from the past, Ned and Verity must hop back to 1888 to put things right and try and keep from altering history. This is a time travelling, screwball comedy of errors as Ned and Verity go down the rabbit hole and insinuate themselves into a verry, verry proper British household. —Anne Rouyer, Mulberry Street

 

 

 

Beyonders trilogy by Brandon Mull. A boy falls into the mouth of a hippo while cleaning the tank at work in the zoo. He emerges in a foreign land where an evil emperor rules and he is destined for greatness. By allying with key individuals he is able to overcome a threat and discover his potential. —Alexander Mouyios, 67^th Street

 

 

 

 

Un Lun Dun by China Miéville is about a young girl going to an otherworld that mirrors our own in odd, terrible and wondrous ways. You will never look at broken umbrellas and giraffes the same way again. —Judd Karlman, Castle Hill

 

 

 

 

 

Staff picks are chosen by NYPL staff members and are not intended to be comprehensive lists. We'd love to hear your ideas too, so leave a comment and tell us what you’d recommend.

And check out our Staff Picks browse tool for 100 new recommendations every month!