{"id":4732,"date":"2026-08-13T21:26:37","date_gmt":"2026-08-13T09:26:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thunderguy.com\/bennett\/?p=4732"},"modified":"2026-09-08T15:57:20","modified_gmt":"2026-09-08T03:57:20","slug":"alice-with-a-why-anna-james","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thunderguy.com\/bennett\/2026\/08\/13\/alice-with-a-why-anna-james\/","title":{"rendered":"Alice With a Why — Anna James"},"content":{"rendered":"
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I like this! I\u2019m a sucker for anything related to Alice in Wonderland<\/em>. This is a sequel of sorts \u2013 the protagonist Alyce is the granddaughter of the original Alice, who she thinks of as a peculiar old lady who tells all these outlandish stories. When Alyce accidentally intercepts Alice\u2019s tea party invitation, she ends up in Wonderland herself, and meets the expected bunch of eccentrics, including some favourites from the original book.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The OG third-party sequel to the Alice books is Gilbert Adair\u2019s brilliant Through the Needle\u2019s Eye<\/em>, which is a sequel to Through the Looking Glass<\/em>. It\u2019s a pitch-perfect pastiche \u2013 it could have been written by Carroll himself. Alice With a Why<\/em> is different \u2013 it\u2019s written for modern youngsters, so nods a bit towards more modern concerns. Grim reality intrudes, as Alyce\u2019s much-loved father has died in the Great War. There is a bit more sadness in this book, as in this poignant passage where she tells her companion the Fox about her father:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cI\u2019m very sorry to hear that,\u201d the Fox said, and passed her a hanky.
\u201cThank you, but I\u2019m not crying,\u201d Alyce said before realising that she was.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

As in the original, a lot of things that happen are either completely nonsensical, or follow a very peculiar logic. But overall the plot of Alice With a Why<\/em> is much more conventional than the original. She is given a mission, which she manages to deal with in quite a clever way. The ending is much neater than the original books, which dissolve into utter chaos. But I think this book strikes the right tone, being a bit more modern but still written in a similar, somewhat old-fashioned voice. These days I don\u2019t know many under-ten-year-olds, but if I did I would certainly recommend this book to them, and to anyone who is an Alice fan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(And if you are an Alice fan, you must read Martin Gardner\u2019s magnificent The Annotated Alice<\/em>. I love that book so much I somehow have two copies.)<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I like this! I\u2019m a sucker for anything related to Alice in Wonderland. This is a sequel of sorts \u2013 the protagonist Alyce is the granddaughter of the original Alice, who she thinks of as a peculiar old lady who … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4733,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[283,4,188,63,132],"class_list":["post-4732","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-review","tag-anna-james","tag-books","tag-lewis-carroll","tag-novels","tag-ya"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderguy.com\/bennett\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4732","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderguy.com\/bennett\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderguy.com\/bennett\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderguy.com\/bennett\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderguy.com\/bennett\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4732"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/thunderguy.com\/bennett\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4732\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4738,"href":"https:\/\/thunderguy.com\/bennett\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4732\/revisions\/4738"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderguy.com\/bennett\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4733"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderguy.com\/bennett\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4732"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderguy.com\/bennett\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4732"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderguy.com\/bennett\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4732"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}