Whatever After: Abby in Wonderland

Abby is eleven years old and lives in Smithville with her mother, father, Jonah her younger brother, and their dog named Prince.  Abby and Jonah have a secret fairy friend named Maryrose who is trapped in a mirror in their basement.  Abby, Jonah, and even Prince typically go on fairy tale adventures when Maryrose helps them enter through the mirror.

Abby has three friends named Frankie, Robin, and Penny.  This adventure begins when they spend the day together over at Penny’s house.  The girls go out on Penny’s back patio to play crazy eights, but it is a cool, windy day and the breeze blows the Queen of hearts out of Penny’s backyard over the fence and onto the golf course beyond.  The girls chase after the Queen of hearts’ card, and Frankie gets close enough to grab it when she disappears into a huge hole in the golf course.  As the hole begins to shrink, Abby realizes this must be a portal into a fairy tale and decides to follow Frankie.  All three girls jump in after Frankie … enter Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland!

The four girls experience adventures like no other.  As Ms. Mlynowski writes, “Maybe nothing is weird in Wonderland because EVERYTHING is weird in Wonderland?”  This is a wonderful novel for young girls.  Book series, like the Whatever After series, are fantastic because the reader becomes so familiar with the characters that they cannot wait to read more and join along in their activities.  This story includes a friendship piece where the girls uncover characteristics about each other they had not known before.  They learn to appreciate each other and that they have more in common than they thought.

I enjoyed this novel.  It was fun reliving Alice’s dream in Wonderland, albeit a little differently.  This Special Edition also includes Story Starters, Word Searches, Fill in the Blanks story creations, and a chat with the author at the end.