Helen Oxenbury takes the 19th-century classic and revitalizes it for a new audience, Alice Through the Looking-Glass by Lewis Carroll. In a starred review of her Alice in Wonderland, PW wrote, "In perhaps her most ambitious work to date, Oxenbury applies her finely honed instinct for a child's perspective to create an Alice accessible to all ages." Those who enjoyed Oxenbury's first foray into Wonderland will be every bit as delighted with the artist's return visit. Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Gr 2 Up-In this delightful companion to Oxenbury's illustrated version of Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (Candlewick, 1999), Alice now wears black tights and a white long-sleeved shirt to suit the winter setting ("Without, the frost, the blinding snow,/The storm-wind's moody madness-/Within, the firelight's ruddy glow,/And childhood's nest of gladness"). Leaving the cozy room behind, she steps through the looking glass and into a world depicted in warm watercolors, sepia-toned illustrations, and line drawings. Not a word of the original tale has been altered. The artwork echoes the whimsy of the language, clearly showing Alice's amusement at the antics of Tweedledum and Tweedledee, her frustration at the impossibility of slicing a "Looking-glass cake," her affection for the gentle White Knight, and her exasperation when both the White and the Red Queen fall asleep snuggled against her. The large font and numerous illustrations, including many single- and double-page paintings, make this edition inviting for reading aloud or alone. The artwork has an engaging openness to it, and Alice comes across as a real child, making it easy for readers to imagine themselves exploring the wonders of this make-believe realm.-Joy Fleishhacker, School Library Journal Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Every bit as handsome as its Greenaway Medal-winning predecessor (1999), this edition of young Alice's second venture beyond the everyday world features a text printed in a comfortably legible font on creamy paper, well supplied with vignettes, sepia figures and full-color scenes done in Oxenbury's trademark pale hues and delicate lines. Bearing a slightly disheveled look and dressed in a bright blue shift, Alice makes a sturdy, confident companion for the adventure. Though the Bandersnatch's chopped-off head is a gory sight and there are other battles galore (the plot is, after all, loosely based on a game of chess), in general the figures she encounters, from Humpty Dumpty to Tweedledum and Tweedledee, are comical enough to keep the tone lighthearted. An outstanding rendition equally suited to reading aloud or alone. (Fantasy. 7-10)

"Lewis Carroll, we could say, created the whole of children’s literature with these wonderful stories. Placing a child at the centre of a narrative that was entirely free of instruction, entirely devoted to delight, was a stroke of genius. The Alices are the greatest nonsense ever written, and far greater, in my view, than most sense.”—Philip Pullman, author, His Dark Materials trilogy