Christmas + Alice in Wonderland? Hello! YES! This was a magical picture book!

I came across this book in Dutch at my Library and I just HAD to get it. And now I have to review it as it was just so much fun and I want more people to discover this delightful Christmas tale!

In this one it is about time for Santa to go on his grand journey to give all the good kids presents. But then one of his elves runs to him with an OLD OLD letter. Apparently it is from Wonderland and apparently it is from the Queen (or when the later was written, the princess) of Hearts. Yup. You know the one. The one who loves lobbing off heads. I guess not getting any Christmas presents + the general craziness of Wonderland does that to people. I loved that Santa immediately went to Wonderland to fix it, but I was laughing when he was confused as to why there were no decorations, yeah, dude, did you see how old the letter was? I know time moves weirdly in Wonderland, but it has been ages. You should get that at least. But anyways. I loved seeing Santa explore both the castle, and then later another fun part of the world of Wonderland with various fun known characters. From the hare who is always late, to our Mad Hatter, to Alice, and several others! It was such a delight and I was just so happy to see them again and in Kate Hindley’s fun way.

The book is also in rhyme, or at least the Dutch one was, and it made it all the more magical and fun to read!

The artwork? As expected from Kate Hindley! Perfection! Gorgeous character designs (a not-blonde Alice for instance), so many fun details you can just keep on reading the book for a long time and still find fun things, gorgeous endpapers, and more! I loved every moment. Well, OK, I am not sure if that cat that is with the Queen all the time is the Cheshire Cat or not.

There was just one part I wasn’t too happy with. When Santa gave our Queen the coal. Yes, she kinda deserves it, I mean, she wanted to lob off Santa’s head. But to be fair Santa, it is partially your fault as well. Before this, there was a happy princess with dreams and then Christmas NEVER once came for her. I think for me it would have been better if Santa had shown her a gift and told her if she wanted it he wanted to have some cheer to make it more festive. Not this coal nonsense. Oh, and while I get that the reindeer was doing self-defence I was a bit like, what the heck when that happened.

But other than that one thing, this was a delight to read and I wouldn’t mind more mix-ups with fairy tale lands!