Teach this Fantasy Novel

Teach This Fantasy Novel: The Looking Glass Wars

Summary:

            Alyss Heart wants you all to know that the story you heard as a child was false. She never fell down a hole with an anxiety-ridden rabbit, and she never attended the world’s most obnoxious tea party. In fact, Wonderland is a very real place with very real problems and Alyss is offended that Reverend Charles Dodgson would take such a flippant tone when he decided to write down her story. But no one in this world will ever believe her story anyway. When she was adopted by the Liddell family everyone thought she just had an overactive imagination. After a while, Alyss stopped believing herself. Maybe Wonderland was never real. She began to question her own sanity until the day her childhood best friend, Dodge, came for her. He told her it was time to come out of hiding. The resistance is ready to fight, and Wonderland needs their queen.

Why Teach This Text?

            Frank Beddor’s The Looking Glass Wars is one of the most well-crafted, thematically-sound novels that I have come across in the ever-expanding reimagining genre. “Reimaginings” have gained a lot of popularity in the past decade with dozens of book titles, the Wicked musical (note: it is actually very different from the book of the same title) and hit television shows such as Once Upon a Time. As an enthusiastic fan of the genre myself, I have read, watched, and listened to every variation of an original fairy tale I could find, and The Looking Glass Wars is one of the most intelligent.

            The Looking Glass Wars, the first book of a trilogy, has offered a successful adaptation to Lewis Carroll’s original stories, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, and What Alice Found There that is set in a war-torn Wonderland.  A book best suited for grades 8-9, The Looking Glass Wars is an interesting way to get students interested in discussions about war without the conversation becoming uncomfortable. Bucher and Hinton explain that fantasy books “provide a way for young adults to look at codes of behavior and the human psyche” (199). For the book’s intended audience, this duality of fact and fiction is a great way to get students interested in the story itself while also inviting the student to look for parallels in reality and delve deeper into the human condition. Concepts like war, and how people act during wartime are issues that are difficult to discuss with a younger age group. Bucher and Hinton explain that using a fantasy novel such as The Looking Glass Wars can help students “consider concepts that are often too scary to consider in real life” (199).

 This novel opens 12 years after a civil war decimated the country. The recovery process is still in progress, and tensions between the two factions are still high in some areas. Alyss’ family is the ruling matriarch for house Heart, and have been working closely with the parliament of other reigning families (Spade, Club, and Diamond) to ensure the safety of their people and protect them against the followers of Black Imagination (basically, black magic). Things are going well in Wonderland until Alyss’ seventh birthday, when her aunt Redd stages a coupe and has Alyss’ mother beheaded so that she may take the throne. Alyss, with the help of her bodyguard, Hatter Madigan, escapes her death at the hands of Redd and ends up in “our” world. During her thirteen-year-long absence, persons who remained loyal to Queen Genevieve and Alyss began a resistance, calling themselves Alyssians, after the queen they are hopeful will return to lead the resistance to victory.  Advanced readers will recognize overthrown regimes, rebellions, resistances, coupes, and post-civil war tension as things that are very applicable to real-world situations, but they are presented in a very digestible way, with characters the students will be a bit familiar with beforehand, to help make younger students draw larger conclusions about society. Moreover, don’t forget that Wonderland is a matriarchy, this is also a discussion worth having with students.

            To state the obvious, this text is also a great way to introduce classic literature into the classroom. It is my personal believe that Lewis Carroll’s verse-based stories are too often overlooked in the curriculum when they are actually a great way to introduce poetry and post-modern form to younger students. It is also noted in many state standards that students should learn how to compare and contrast two adaptations of a single story—which is the very heart of Beddor’s novel. I would like to mention that the connections between the original book and the reimagining actually run deeper than simply appropriated character names Many of the references that Beddor makes to the original story are subtle, intelligent, and foreign to the casual Alice in Wonderland fan. Students will actually have to look beyond the character names to see the depth of references made by Beddor.

This is also the first book in a trilogy written by Beddor. Normally, I do not advocate for books in the classroom that are not resolved within a single text; however, I make an exception to my rule for this one. Because this is a book that is so rich with potential in the Creative Writing classroom, I feel that an open ended book could be an advantage when discussing final projects. I also believe that it could encourage students to read the other two books as well on their own accord. This is not a text that I would recommend for higher grade levels. I believe this text is most suited for 8^th and 9^th grade, and perhaps honors 7^th grade and remedial 10^th. This is a book that I believe would be a great way to introduce different devices such as literary structure, compare and contrast, and looking for real-life themes. Overall, Frank Beddor’s The Looking Glass Wars is worth reading for your consideration.

Hatter M

The Looking Glass Wars trilogy also sparked a spin-off graphic novel series titled Hatter M. Thoughout the original books, Hatter Madigan is a very interesting character that is very secretive about his past and present. Hatter M follows him through the adventures that are not seen in the trilogy itself. This may be another alternative if you are interested in The Looking Glass Wars but are looking for a different medium or are unsure about using a single book out of a trilogy. 

Here is a very simple character breakdown:

Original Story	The Looking Glass Wars
Alice	Alyss Heart, princess of Wonderland. After escaping Wonderland with Hatter Madigan, the two become separated in the portal. Alyss lives as a street urchin and in an orphanage until she is adopted by the Liddell family.
The Mad Hatter	Hatter Madigan, body guard of Alyss. Hatter Madigan is part of the resistance after the queen’s assassination. He also visits the other world frequently in search of Alyss. The resistance holds out hope for 13 years that they will find their queen.
White Rabbit	Bibwit Harte, Alyss’ tutor. His race is known for having pale skin and large ears. Charles Dodgson realized his name was an anagram and thereby changed his entire personae to be more whimsical. Bibwit is also part of the resistance.
Queen of Hearts	Redd, Alyss’ aunt. Redd was a secret benefactor of Black Imagination during the civil war. She staged a coupe and had her sister beheaded for the throne. She has since decimated Wonderland, and has brought tension to a breaking point to cause a second civil war. In later books, it is discovered that she is enslaving “lesser” races in Wonderland as well.
Cheshire Cat	The Cat. Redd’s top assassin. The Cat is a feline/human hybrid species. They are known for being able to endure death 9 times before they are finally defeated. The Cat has been sent after Alyss, hoping that her death will end the resistance.

The Card Soldiers:

How to Teach This:

Creative Writing Workshops

Have students write their own reimaging. Allow students to pick their own fairy tale (preferably confirm what they have chosen ahead of time, so that it is a fairy tale you as a teacher are familiar with) and they can pick however they want to reimagine it. They must go through the entire process of creating concept maps, character maps, and illustrations.  Similarly, Creative Writing Roulette is applicable to this concept. This is a game in which a student randomly picks a story (Peter Pan, Alice in Wonderland, the Three Little Pigs) and then randomly select a theme (dystopian society, steampunk, futuristic) and they must write a story based on their random selections.

Defend a Text

Whenever a story is reimagined, readers have the opportunity to say “I liked <whichever one> better.” Students will write an argumentative essay in which they argue that the like either the original Lewis Carroll story or Frank Beddor’s reimagining better, and why. This essay should have more detail than simply “because the other one sucked.” Students will have to argue the significance of one text over the other and, if they were teaching the class, which text they would teach.

Illustrate the Text

The book provides the  reader with several character drawings, but not all of them. Students must illustrate 3 characters in the novel, or illustrate a particular section of Wonderland. Due to the fantasy genre, the students are allowed a lot of creativity with their renderings, but the text also gives a lot of descriptions. Students should justify their illustrations with specific evidence from the text.

Create a Game

A major theme in this story is (obviously) war, but chess boards and chess pieces have also been an important part of the Wonderland canon. In groups, students will reimagine the traditional Risk game to fit The Looking Glass Wars using specific evidence from the text as well as the map of Wonderland provided on the opening pages. Students must explain their choices. 

Works Cited

Beddor, Frank. The Looking Glass Wars. New York: Dial, 2006. Print.

Short, Katherine Bucher and KaaVonia Hinton. Young Adult Literature: Exploration,        Evaluation, and Appreciation. 3rd ed. Boston: Pearson, 2014. Print.