The Looking Glass Wars, by Frank Beddor
Beddor, Frank (2006). The Looking Glass Wars. New York: Speak (Penguin). 358 pages.
Summary and Evaluation: What if Wonderland truly existed . . . but Lewis Carroll got it wrong? On Princess Alyss Heart’s seventh birthday, her evil Aunt Redd storms the palace with card soldiers and the Cat (an assassin with nine lives), murders the Queen, and declares herself ruler of the queendom. Hatter Madigan, the Queen’s personal bodyguard, escapes with Alyss through the Pool of Tears into “our” world, where they are separated. Alyss is eventually adopted by the Liddel family; nobody believes her stories about Wonderland, but the Rev. Charles Dodgson revises them into a fairytale. Tired of being made fun of and wanting to fit in, Alice convinces herself she did make up those stories as she begins to grow older. Meanwhile, Madigan spends years trying to find Alyss and her friend Dodge Anders is leading the resistance movement against Redd. Both know Alyss must come back to Wonderland to rightfully rule the queendom.
I was intrigued by the concept of this novel when I first saw it-revisionist Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland? Excellent! The book didn’t disappoint, either. The characters we know and love are nearly all here: the White and Red Queens (Genevieve and Redd, respectively), the Cheshire Cat (Redd’s assassin), the Mad Hatter (Hatter Madigan, head of the Millinery), the White Rabbit (Alyss’s tutor Bibwit Harte), the Caterpillar (a mystic species living in the mushroom forest), Tweedle-Dum and Tweedle-Dee (General Dopplegänger, who often divides himself into two bodies), even Jabberwocky are present. In this Wonderland, looking-glass travel is the fastest way to get from one place to another (rather like fireplaces on the Floo Network in the Harry Potterverse) and Imagination is the greatest weapon. The story moves back and forth between Wonderland and mid-1800s England; both settings are richly described. The battle scenes (yes) are not as intense as one might see in other novels, but I hadn’t been expecting as many. Fun bonuses include a map of the Wondernations (with a fierce Jabberwock hiding in the corner!), a color section depicting several of the characters (almost like in a junior movie novelisation), and a timeline with events in the Wondernations corresponding to those in “our” world during the time Alyss spends here. The Looking Glass Wars will be a trilogy; the sequel Seeing Red (2007) has been published, along with the first volume of a graphic novel-style comic series (Hatter M, 2008).
Booktalk Hook: This might be a good book to display faced (if there is enough room in the collection to face books)-the cover shows several card soldiers, which look rather similar to the battle droids from the first Star Wars prequel, marching menacingly toward the reader. To booktalk this novel, I would perhaps read the second half of the prologue (almost two pages)-this is where we see Alyss’s feelings of disappointment and betrayal upon reading Carroll’s book.
Summary and Evaluation: What if Wonderland truly existed . . . but Lewis Carroll got it wrong? On Princess Alyss Heart’s seventh birthday, her evil Aunt Redd storms the palace with card soldiers and the Cat (an assassin with nine lives), murders the Queen, and declares herself ruler of the queendom. Hatter Madigan, the Queen’s personal bodyguard, escapes with Alyss through the Pool of Tears into “our” world, where they are separated. Alyss is eventually adopted by the Liddel family; nobody believes her stories about Wonderland, but the Rev. Charles Dodgson revises them into a fairytale. Tired of being made fun of and wanting to fit in, Alice convinces herself she did make up those stories as she begins to grow older. Meanwhile, Madigan spends years trying to find Alyss and her friend Dodge Anders is leading the resistance movement against Redd. Both know Alyss must come back to Wonderland to rightfully rule the queendom.
I was intrigued by the concept of this novel when I first saw it-revisionist Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland? Excellent! The book didn’t disappoint, either. The characters we know and love are nearly all here: the White and Red Queens (Genevieve and Redd, respectively), the Cheshire Cat (Redd’s assassin), the Mad Hatter (Hatter Madigan, head of the Millinery), the White Rabbit (Alyss’s tutor Bibwit Harte), the Caterpillar (a mystic species living in the mushroom forest), Tweedle-Dum and Tweedle-Dee (General Dopplegänger, who often divides himself into two bodies), even Jabberwocky are present. In this Wonderland, looking-glass travel is the fastest way to get from one place to another (rather like fireplaces on the Floo Network in the Harry Potterverse) and Imagination is the greatest weapon. The story moves back and forth between Wonderland and mid-1800s England; both settings are richly described. The battle scenes (yes) are not as intense as one might see in other novels, but I hadn’t been expecting as many. Fun bonuses include a map of the Wondernations (with a fierce Jabberwock hiding in the corner!), a color section depicting several of the characters (almost like in a junior movie novelisation), and a timeline with events in the Wondernations corresponding to those in “our” world during the time Alyss spends here. The Looking Glass Wars will be a trilogy; the sequel Seeing Red (2007) has been published, along with the first volume of a graphic novel-style comic series (Hatter M, 2008).
Booktalk Hook: This might be a good book to display faced (if there is enough room in the collection to face books)-the cover shows several card soldiers, which look rather similar to the battle droids from the first Star Wars prequel, marching menacingly toward the reader. To booktalk this novel, I would perhaps read the second half of the prologue (almost two pages)-this is where we see Alyss’s feelings of disappointment and betrayal upon reading Carroll’s book.