Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There

Chris Riddell reflects on the contrasting appeal of *Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland* and *Through the Looking-Glass*, comparing their worlds, characters, and reversed logic. He celebrates the latter’s poems—especially “The Walrus and the Carpenter” and “Jabberwocky”—and explains how Carroll’s imaginative language has shaped his own work as a political cartoonist. The tone is playful and affectionate, ending with Riddell choosing the looking-glass world as his favorite.

While reprimanding and playing with her kitten, Alice imagines the world behind the looking-glass and discovers that its surface has become a passage. In the strange mirrored room, she encounters living chess pieces, helps the White Queen and King, and reads the puzzling poem “Jabberwocky”; curious and buoyant, she then floats down the stairs to explore the garden.

Alice struggles to reach the hill through a path that repeatedly carries her back to the house, then discovers a garden of talking flowers whose teasing introduces her to the Red Queen. The Queen leads Alice across the chessboard-like country in a breathless run that leaves them where they began, explains that Alice is a pawn moving toward becoming a queen, and disappears after giving her instructions. The chapter’s playful, bewildering landscape mirrors Alice’s growing curiosity and her uneasy adjustment to a world governed by strange rules.

Alice surveys the strange landscape, then finds herself aboard a train whose talking passengers mock and confuse her before a leap over a brook leaves her beneath a tree with the melancholy Gnat. As they discuss fantastical insects and the possibility of losing her name, the Gnat vanishes; Alice enters a nameless wood, forgets who she is, and regains her name while traveling with a Fawn that flees upon recognizing her as human. Still determined to reach the Eighth Square, she follows the baffling signs toward Tweedledum’s and Tweedledee’s house, ending with an unexpected encounter.

In the darkening wood, Alice meets the solemnly absurd Tweedle brothers, dances with them, and listens to their poem about the Walrus and the Carpenter. Their claim that she exists only in the Red King’s dream unsettles her, but she brushes away her tears and turns back toward finding her way out. When Tweedledum discovers his broken rattle, the brothers prepare for a battle—until a huge black crow sweeps toward them, sending them fleeing as Alice takes shelter among the trees.

Alice helps the disheveled White Queen dress and learns that in her backward-moving world, events and memories unfold in reverse; their conversation veers from comic confusion to the Queen’s shrieks and Alice’s loneliness. As the Queen chases her shawl, the wood gives way to a dark shop where an old Sheep knits and sells curious goods, and Alice is swept into a boat ride before returning to the shop to buy an egg. The chapter’s playful, dreamlike transformations mingle wonder with frustration as Alice discovers a world where things evade her grasp and even the setting shifts around her.

In a strange forest, Alice finds Humpty Dumpty perched precariously on a narrow wall and endures his insults, riddles, and arguments about names and the meaning of words. Their conversation shifts from his promised royal rescue and un-birthday arithmetic to his fanciful explanations of “Jabberwocky” and an unfinished poem; when Humpty dismisses her, Alice walks away, only for a sudden crash to shake the forest.

Alice emerges from a chaotic forest of stumbling soldiers and meets the White King, whose absurd exchange with the breathless Messenger Haigha leads them toward the town. There she watches the Lion and the Unicorn fight over the King’s crown, pause for refreshments, and trade comic insults; Alice’s encounter with the Unicorn turns mutual disbelief into a playful bargain of belief. The chapter’s shifting spectacle—from forest to battlefield—keeps its whimsical, topsy-turvy humor, until the drums erupt and Alice flees the deafening noise.

After the vanished battle, Alice is caught between the Red and White Knights, whose absurd combat ends with the Red Knight riding away and the gentle, hapless White Knight escorting her through the wood. His inventions, endless tumbles, and melancholy song turn the journey into a comic, dreamlike farewell; as the sun gilds the scene, Alice watches him disappear, then crosses the final brook into the Eighth Square and discovers a crown on her head. The mood shifts from bewilderment and playful absurdity to tender sadness, then to delighted anticipation as Alice becomes a Queen.

Newly crowned Alice is subjected to the Queens’ absurd examination, then finds herself ushered into a chaotic feast where talking food, unruly guests, and impossible rules overwhelm her. As the dinner dissolves into flying tableware and vanishing Queens, Alice’s frustration turns to decisive action: she overturns the table and confronts the shrunken Red Queen.

Awakening from her looking-glass dream, Alice playfully addresses her kittens as the Red and White Queens, imagining the dream’s characters in their familiar forms. She wonders whether she or the Red King dreamed the other, then the closing poem recalls the childhood boat trip that inspired the tale and reflects on memory, time, and life as a dream.

This supplementary chapter shifts from Alice’s Looking-glass adventure to an illustrated guide to Lewis Carroll, the story’s characters, and the chess ideas behind its world. It offers historical context, discussion questions, creative activities, a recipe, chess facts, and a glossary, maintaining a playful, inviting tone that encourages readers to explore and imagine beyond the story.

Dorothy and her companions press toward the Emerald City, crossing a forest where the Cowardly Lion carries them over a gulf and the group outwits two fearsome Kalidahs by dropping their bridge. Emerging into a sunny landscape, they build a raft to cross a swift river, but the current sweeps them away from the yellow-brick road and leaves the Scarecrow stranded midstream; the Lion swims the others to shore. Their resourcefulness and loyalty sustain them through danger, though the journey grows uncertain as they find themselves far from their path.

Puffin celebrates its long history, tracing its roots to Allen Lane’s invention of the quality paperback in 1935 and the growth of children’s books that followed. From the first Puffin Picture Books and the debut of Worzel Gummidge to Kaye Webb’s Puffin Club, the chapter warmly honors generations of young readers and promises that there is a Puffin for everyone.