I read Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass as one of my outside reading assignments. His second book was every bit as nonsensical as the first, and even more so in parts. I wish I had known a little more about the game of chess before reading the book, because I think I would have understood several more of the subtleties in the story.

The plot is basically that Alice climbs through her mirror above her mantelpiece to get to a world of nonsense where a checkerboard dominates the pace of the book. She meets characters such as Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum, Humpty Dumpty, talking flowers, and the Red Queen (a living chess piece). The Queen told her that she had to get to the 8th square where she would then be crowned as queen. She succeeds (after meeting many strange characters along the way), and is crowned queen. She checkmates the king and eventually wakes up back in her living room.

I really enjoyed the book, and I love how Lewis Carroll never ceased to think outside of the box. Alice and the queen ran as fast as they could to stay in the same spot; what a novel idea! I would liken him to J.K. Rowling as she also thinks completely outside of the box (i.e. moving photographs). I am glad that I have read both, and I now see where Disney got many of the other characters for Alice in Wonderland.