From the Introduction:

“From the point of view of a child, mirrors are magical objects. They allow children to peer into a world as large as the one they occupy, but far more interesting because it is impossible, except in the most vivid imagination, to enter. Countless stories and fairy tales feature mirrors as crucial parts of the tale, whether as a character in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, or as the passage to another world in Through the Looking Glass. The power of mirrors have been well exploited by Terry Jones, an author whose books of fairy tales and fantastic stories have kept our children enraptured for many hours. Jones uses mirrors to great advantage to expose vanity or to ensure that humility remains a virtue. In one story, the reflection in the mirror is more beautiful than what is reflected. In another, mirrors allow the viewers to see themselves as others see them.

Fiction or not, the traits of these mirrors described in these tales are precisely those that we expect from our mirrors. And in fact it’s not all that clear that as adults the magic on the other side of the looking glass ever diminishes or loosens its hold on our imagination...”