The Looking Glass Wars

The Looking Glass Wars by Frank Beddor

Category: KidLit Grade: B+

I tend to be a sucker for books like this. Beddor has taken the story everybody knows of Alice in Wonderland and written a fantasy (aimed at teens) that purports to tell the "real" story. It turns out, according to Beddor, that Lewis Carroll actually mangled the story told to him by Alyss Heart (even misspelling her name). Alyss ended up in Victorian London after escaping from Wonderland during a the battle in which her Aunt Redd forcefully took the crown of the Queen of Hearts from her sister, Alyss's mother. Carroll's silly version does, however, turn out to be just enough of a clue for the head of Heart Security, Hatter Madigan (get it?), to find Alyss and help her get back to Wonderland to reclaim her crown.

OK, I grant you it sounds silly, but its actually a lot of fun. Beddor has used the characters of Carroll's book as a a starting point to create some great characters and a really amazing world in which people travel by looking glass, card soldiers are real and the main aristocratic families of the world are the Hearts, the Spades, the Clubs and the Diamonds. The story is engaging, especially when it has characters from Wonderland trying to make their way in "our" world. Beddor gets a little carried away when he's over describing some of the weapons in the world and that kept him from getting an A, but he's definitely got my attention and I eagerly await volume two of this trilogy.