Alice With a Why, by Anna James

November 23, 2025 / November 23, 2025 by Star Cat Books | Leave a comment

(Hardcover 224 pp, $18.99)

Here the author of the series Whetherwhy and the Pages & Co series brings us a delightful revisit to Wonderland, but not with the original Alice but instead her granddaughter, Alyce (“with a Y”).

Alyce, living an idyllic life at her grandmother’s cottage (very Wonderland in itself), has a soggy note come flying out of nowhere and plaster itself to her face. It was an oddly incoherent cry for help to Alice (she couldn’t quite make out the words, but assumed it meant her grandmother) and to come as soon as possible to Wonderland..

Right after that happens, she accidentally steps too far into the pond and starts sinking. And sinking. And sinking. And finds she can breathe. Fish go by, then more creatures and objects and things, until it becomes a dry hole, very much like the original entry to Wonderland. She’d always wondered about her grandmother’s stories about Wonderland, and figured they were just that: stories. Yet her grandmother always spoke as if it were true.

And now here is Alyce, discovering it’s true indeed.

Wonderland is not as it was: a war is on (WWII is just over at home, and they still remember the hard times and are still on rations) — the Queen of the Night (the Night Queen) and the King of the Day (the Sun King) are at war with each other over a “stolen hour”, so the “lights” go off and on randomly, leaving Wonderland tattered, not working right (even though it was a quiet chaos already), and the inhabitants unhappy and stressed. Even the Stars left — the heavens are dark as dark can be.

Alyce immediately finds the Tea Party, but everything is broken, the table is tiny, and even the Hatter is stressed and angry and sad. They had been waiting for Alice to come fix everything. Well, Alyce will do — and the chaotic and charmingly Wonderland-ish adventure begins.

A sailor fox is met (as is the Caterpillar and of course the White Rabbit, whose duty now is to check everyone’s Papers); the fox becomes Alyce’s guide, friend, and confidante. The world building is very Carroll-ian: chaos meets charming at every turn. And yet over-looming it all, until Alyce solves the issue to hand, is a War.

Adventures are had, impossible things abound, and the prose is so very Carroll-ish that this reader was enchanted from the start. The story is indeed a journey of Alyce’s discovery of her own abilities and self reliance.

Needless to say, Alyce does save Wonderland, and with a clever nod to Joyce’s Ulysses, c/o the Caterpillar (who found the sheet of paper he was using as an umbrella against the wind “inedible”) we do indeed find that “the longest way round is the shortest way home.”

Highly recommended for middle reader through YA and certainly adults who enjoy a clever fairytale and loved the original Wonderland.