One reason is surely the 7-year-old at the center of the original books. "Lewis Carroll made this figure — a gutsy kid who's curious and wants to move ahead to the next adventure, and [explore] all kinds of possibilities," says James Kincaid, the Aerol Arnold professor of English at USC and the school's resident Alice expert. (The author of extensive essays on all things Alice, Kincaid also provided the preface and notes for the 1983 Pennyroyal Press edition illustrated by Barry Moser.)
"At the time, she seemed to represent something new in children's literature, a sense of self-sufficiency," Kincaid says. "She makes mistakes — she's even attacked — but she never once refers to her parents. I think there's a powerhouse appeal to the idea that children both need to be protected but have a sense that they live in a world of their own and have their own authority within that world.