by Elton Gahr

Created on: March 23, 2010

I like to read books in preparation for movies that are coming out because no matter how good or bad the movie they inevitably change the way that I see the book. For example as much as I like the lord of the rings movies they still take something away from the books because it is so hard for me to not see those characters when I read. And so I decided to step back through the looking glass with Alice before the new movie came out.

Through the Looking Glass is the sequel to Alice In Wonderland though the truth is that there is very little in this book that is connected to the previous, the world is different as are the rules, but there are still similarities and they are both largely nonsense.

The theme of Wonderland was that of cards with the seeming randomness that came with it while in through the looking glass Alice is confronted by a world that is largely dominated by the idea of Chess. She herself even takes part in the game as she is given the chance to become a queen if she can reach the end.

Each of the Chapters is effectively one of the  spaces on a chess board and many of the people which she meets are chess pieces, with the king being treated as largely unimportant while it is the queens that run things. This fits well with the theme of chess as well as with a story about a young girl.

There are a number of famous characters from this story. Humpty Dumpty is in the story but was already famous. Another chapter has the characters Tweedledie and Tweedledum, who tell a poem of the Walrus and the Carpenter a very interesting story in itself, and quite creepy if read in a literal sense.

With each chapter largely separate from the rest this is as much a strange series of events as it is a story and that makes it quite good  for reading a chapter a night to a child but because of the changes in society much of what is said and done by the characters is likely to be odd to adult and child so it would likely be good to read the chapters before hand so you know the answer to the questions and head off any misunderstandings about what is going on.

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