What makes Alice different from others? Why do you like the character?

Alice is an individualist."Characters" in the Study Guide for Alice's Adventures in Wonderland describes her as:

...a curious, imaginative, strong-willed, and honest young English girl.

She is not content to be a typical docile, demure, quiet, obedient little Victorian girl. She gets bored with sitting around reading books--especially books with no pictures in them. She wants some adventure in her life. No doubt she gets some of her ideas about the possibilities of adventure from the books she reads--the ones she enjoys. She would like to explore the world. It is easy to relate to her because we are kept in her point of view throughout the entire book; and we can identify with her motivation, which is to get back home. Alice is courageous. In spite of being lost, and in spite of running into all sorts of strange creatures and situations--most notably the Queen of Hearts who wants to have Alice's head chopped off--the little girl remains unflappable. There is an element of danger throughout the story because the strange world has not been thoroughly explored, and may never be completely explored because it is infinite. Anything could happen.

Alice strongly resembles Dorothy in the Oz books, which is understandable because L. Frank Baum was directly inspired by the two books about Alice by Lewis Carroll. Dorothy has a similar strength of character. She could be described as:

...a curious, imaginative, strong-willed, and honest young Kansas girl.

Dorothy becomes the leader when she encounters the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodman, and the Cowardly Lion, because, albeit she is only around six years old, she is a real human being while they, along with all the other characters, are only illusions. The Wicked Witch of the West in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is the counterpart of the Queen of Hearts in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Both provide the greatest danger to the intrepid heroines. Both these little girls are motivated to get back to their respective homes, but neither of them seems to be in any particular hurry to get there. Wonderland and Oz are far more interesting than the stodgy places Alice and Dorothy came from.