The Looking Glass Wars by Frank Beddor

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Alyss Heart can't stand that "master of fantasy" bunk; she knows that Lewis Carroll was nothing more than an incompetent reporter. After she generously shared her Wonderland experiences with this fledgling author, he totally botched the retelling, even mangling her name. Alyss, however, refuses to merely grouse; she and royal bodyguard Hatter Madigan decide to make another emergency excursion down the rabbit hole, opening our eyes to parallel realms that prim Rev. Dodgson never imagined. A refreshing take on a Victorian classic.

From the Publisher

The Myth: Alice was an ordinary girl who stepped through the looking glass and entered a fairy-tale world invented by Lewis Carroll in his famous storybook. The Truth: Wonderland is real. Alyss Heart is the heir to the throne, until her murderous aunt Redd steals the crown and kills Alyss' parents. To escape Redd, Alyss and her bodyguard, Hatter Madigan, must flee to our world through the Pool of Tears. But in the pool Alyss and Hatter are separated. Lost and alone in Victorian London, Alyss is befriended by an aspiring author to whom she tells the violent, heartbreaking story of her young life. Yet he gets the story all wrong. Hatter Madigan knows the truth only too well, and he is searching every corner of our world to find the lost princess and return her to Wonderland so she may battle Redd for her rightful place as the Queen of Hearts.

Publishers Weekly

Narrator Doyle brings to life this fanciful re-imagining of Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. The premise has young Alyss Hart, heiress to the Wonderland throne, chased from the "queendom" in a bloody coup mounted by her despotic Aunt Redd. Alyss escapes through a magical pool to Victorian London. There, no one will listen to her story except for Charles Dodgson (aka Carroll) who publishes his own take. A theater-trained actor, Doyle artfully animates a large and diverse cast of fantasy and real-life characters. He's especially menacing as the murderous Aunt Redd, each high-pitched syllable dripping with malice. At the opposite end of the spectrum, Doyle quietly captures the resignation in Alyss's tender voice as she grows older in exile. For the duty-driven royal bodyguard Hatter Madigan, he colors his delivery with a determined stoicism as he seeks his missing charge. Doyle also navigates the social echelons of 19th-century England-from street urchins to palace guards to princes. In some exchanges, the vocal residue of one character bleeds into the voice of another. But that is a minor quibble. Doyle juggles an eclectic and other-worldly ensemble, never letting anything hit the ground. Ages 9-up. (Oct.) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

VOYA

Alyss Heart, seven-year-old heir to Wonderland, flees from her traitorous Aunt Redd through the Pool of Tears and ends up in London. After weeks begging and stealing with a band of street urchins, Alyss is sent to an orphanage and subsequently adopted by the Liddells. The Reverend Dodgson alone appears to believe her story, but Alyss is devastated when his famous book changes the details, including her name. She vows to put Wonderland behind her, but years later, when she is about to marry Prince Leopold, her Wonderland heritage returns dramatically. The clever premise, the superior production values, and the publisher's ambitious marketing plans will no doubt ensure success at least on par with that of other recent juvenile fantasies. This book is enjoyable, but it could have been more. Admittedly the stated target audience is ten and up, but some details, such as jollyjellies and tarty tarts, are just too cute. Redd is so one-dimensional that her own propaganda says she thrives on deceit and violence, and Alyss's test in the Looking Glass Maze seems particularly derivative, not of Carroll's original but of Star Wars, of all things. The only significant emotional note is brief poignancy as Alyss deliberately suppresses her memories. Consequently this book does not compare favorably, for instance, to Herbie Brennan's The Faerie Wars Chronicles, which also deal with deposed child rulers and portals between worlds but with greater sophistication and meaning.

Donna Scanlon - KLIATT

Beddor's take on Alice in Wonderland debuts in the US two years after both horrifying and delighting readers in the United Kingdom. According to Beddor's premise, Alice Liddell was really Alyss, Princess of Wonderland, deposed by her wicked Aunt Redd. She escapes the coup that took the lives of her parents through the Pool of Tears, which deposits her in Victorian London. She is adopted by the Liddell family, meets Charles Dodgson and tells him her story, but he gets it all wrong when he writes it down in a book. Alyss despairs of anyone believing her and decides to put her memories behind her, but just as she is about to marry, she is drawn back to Wonderland and into the struggle to establish her as the rightful queen. This book is definitely not for Lewis Carroll purists. It is plot-driven and packed with vividly described action, especially in the battles between Redd's forces and the Alyssians. There are plenty of battles, violent ones, although violence is never glorified, particularly violence committed for its own sake. I did wince at the labeling of "good" imagination as White Imagination and "bad" imagination as Black Imagination. The characters are less developed, and attempts to add dimensional traits never fully hit the mark. The traits are not well integrated into the characters and are not always convincing. Also, an author's note detailing what was true about the real Alice and Lewis Carroll would have been nice. Still, the book is readable and appealing, and it is a good choice for reluctant readers. KLIATT Codes: JS--Recommended for junior and senior high school students. 2006, Penguin, Dial, 358p. illus., $17.99.. Ages 12 to 18.

Francisca GoldsmithCopyright 2006 Reed Business Information. - School Library Journal

Gr 9 Up
Frank Beddor's clever novel (Dial, 2006) puts Lewis Carroll's heroine—along with her loony, puzzle-riddled world—into a new and wholly satisfying frame. In this version, most of Alyss Heart's family and friends are ruthlessly killed by her evil Aunt Redd. Alyss escapes through the Pool of Tears, which is actually a portal between worlds, and winds up in Victorian England and is renamed Alice. At first, the child tries to tell ordinary humans about her world and the power imagination actually effects in Wonderlandia, but they gently chide her for telling stories. She believes that she's found a sympathetic ear in a young Oxford don who is a friend of her adopted family, but he turns her story into the travesty we all know as "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland." Meanwhile, Hatter Madigan, a member of Wonderlandia's Millinery, who also escaped through the Pool, searches for Alyss across continents and time, until he finds her more than a dozen years later. Back home in Wonderlandia, the few who have escaped evil Redd's soldiers plot to retake the land. Gerard Doyle reads with asperity and speaks the copious puns without any added slyness. Fans of Carroll's stories will flock to this and those who have managed to miss that less violent classic can get to it while waiting for the next volume in this exciting and humorous trilogy.

Kirkus Reviews

Alice in Wonderland gets an update in this first installment of a planned trilogy. Princess Alyss, driven out of her Wonderland kingdom by her evil aunt, Redd, suffers years of exile in Victorian England before her dedicated bodyguard, Hatter Madigan, finds her. Dragged back to the home she feared she had only imagined, it is now up to Alyss to rally her troops, drive out the usurper and claim her throne. Can she survive assassination attempts by the vicious Cat with nine lives, a spy amongst her faithful followers, a trek across the Chessboard Desert to Redd's fortress at Mount Isolation and a duel of White vs. Black Imagination? Penned by the producer of There's Something About Mary, it's clear that this version will make the transition to the big screen, as the book reads more like a screenplay than a novel. The action moves swiftly from one complex scene to the next; there is minimal character development and opportunities for rich detail are tossed away all too often in favor of simply moving the story forward. One can only hope it translates well to the screen. (Fantasy. 12-15)

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