ChildrensPictureBook.info Review

Alice Through the Looking-Glass
By Lewis Carrolly
Illustrator Helen Oxenbury
Publisher Candlewick Press

The difference between a dream and a nightmare is often our perception that the strange goings on in our dreams are really okay. Sudden changes of location or talking animals aren't frightening if the dreamer doesn't perceive them as frightening. Alice's adventure through the looking glass is full of odd encounters and confusion, and yet the reader feels only the slight disorientation that Alice feels as she realigns her perspective to her new situation. It helps that Lewis Carroll's Alice Through the Looking-Glass is a gentler tale than Alice in Wonderland. A good deal of credit also goes to Helen Oxenbury, the illustrator of this volume. She presents Alice as an unflappable little blonde in white t-shirt, blue jumper, and black tights. She could be the little girl down the street. Of course, Alice is the kind of unflappable little girl who is always ready for an adventure, and a chance to see what life is like in Looking-Glass House just the other side of the mirror is a wonderful opportunity. The world through the looking glass, replete with living chess pieces, Humpty Dumpty, unicorns, and lions, is wonderfully visualized in Oxenbury's full color, sepia-toned or black-line illustrations. There's the same sense of silliness expressed by Margot Apple's illustrations in Sheep in a Jeep, but with the extra dimension of Alice reacting to all the pandemonium. This delightful illustrated storybook will be reread as much for the pictures as the story itself.

Alice Through the Looking-Glass

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