The Sky Isn’t the Limit Anymore The Looking Glass Wars by: Frank Beddor A caterpillar that smokes from pipes and eats tarty-tarts is only the beginning of Frank Beddor’s first book in his trilogy The Looking Glass Wars. Many of us are familiar with the infamous fairy tale of Alice who stumbles upon a hole that leads her to Wonderland and meets strange characters like the Cheshire Cat and others. Now there are many differences in Beddor’s tale; not only is the Cat an assassin with nine lives but Alice-the character we grew up knowing-has a different name, Alyss Heart.
She is a young girl whose kingdom of Wonderland is taken over by her blood thirsty and cruel Aunt Redd, who is truly the incarnation of evil. This book is one with many gory battles, sad deaths, and is a mouthful of gwormy worms because of its unforgettable characters. Alyss’s parents-whom are both assassinated by Redd-are the type of parents who truly love their daughter. Alyss is 1 percent child and 99 percent goof. She does not fully understand her role as princess and is forced into fleeing her Queendom and entire world to escape Redd’s wrath.
She is taken by Hatter Madigan, personal guard of the Queen and gets separated in England. Alyss now has to grow out of her childish nature and do many things, and each of them is near impossible. She must…somehow find Hatter in a whole new world that she is not familiar with; survive in a surrounding unfamiliar to her; find a way back to her own world; and train her imagination so that she can fight Redd. Yes, you heard right. Imagination. No longer are conventional weapons such as guns and bombs needed when you can simply imagine the most deadly weapons in a second.
You can even pull a prank on a random bystander just by thinking it true, which was usually done by Alyss. ‘”It’d be more fun if it had fountains of water coming out of it,” Alyss said, and immediately the hoop was spurting water from tiny holes all along its surface, the surprised inventor still wiggling to keep it swinging round and round. ’ (Beddor, 2) The Looking Glass Wars is Frank Beddor’s first book series and he has already hit the awards and recognition necessary to be as good as J. K. Rowling and Stephanie Meyers.
This is a story that emanates the story of a girl, a kingdom, and her struggle to fight for imagination everywhere. This book is a non-stop action packed roller coaster ride because of its everlasting impact on the readers mind. Alyss is a girl with a heart twice the normal size and an imagination so powerful that she can out does many of her predecessors. The plot twists in this book is so sharp that it will cause you to fall off the edge each time. The blood. The war. The imagination. The love-mainly forbidden-creates a story that outdoes the original Alice in Wonderland.
No two chapters start with the same perspective. One chapter can start off with the evil thoughts of Redd or another chapter may start with our benevolent hero Alyss. The possibilities are endless with all the characters in the book and each and every chapter holds surprises that will force you to read on and hopefully find out what happened to that specific character. Readers find their love towards this book similar to dividing a number by zero, its indefinable. The use of dialect among even the tree’s in the Everlasting Forest gives life to this master piece.
This remix of Alex in Wonderland is truly a work of art, from its surprising plot twists to the unique characters in this book. One reason that may attract people to this book is the newly released Alice in Wonderland movie. The film sensation brought about many viewers and even more followers of a girl who fell in a hole and found Wonderland. One of the more spectacular characters is Redd Heart. This malevolent tyrant kills her own sister-the late Queen of Wonderland- and her sister’s husband just so that she can become Queen of Wonderland.
Her temper is so short that she kills people who don’t follow her unimportant mandates such as calling her by a nickname-her Imperial Viciousness-and instills fear upon all of Wonderland so that nobody disobeys her. Her remarks about death can be shown in this quote; “Standing amid the crumbled stone and splinters of wood was a nightmare version of Genevieve, a woman Alyss had never seen before. “Off with their heads! ” the woman screamed. “Off with their stinking, boring heads. ”’ (Beddor, 12) Her hate, blood-lust, and simple cruelty helps make the book a one hit wonder among the world of literature.
