ALICE ON THE OUTSIDE [Paperback]

PHYLLIS REYNOLDS NAYLOR (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster (2001)
• ASIN: B000RDRI50
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (20 customer reviews)

More About the Author

I guess I've been writing for about as long as I can remember. Telling stories, anyway, if not writing them down. I had my first short story published when I was sixteen, and wrote stories to help put myself through college, planning to become a clinical psychologist. By the time I graduated with a BA degree, however, I decided that writing was really my first love, so I gave up plans for graduate school and began writing full time.

I'm not happy unless I spend some time writing every day. It's as though pressure builds up inside me, and writing even a little helps to release it. On a hard-writing day, I write about six hours. Tending to other writing business, answering mail, and just thinking about a book takes another four hours. I spend from three months to a year on a children's book, depending on how well I know the characters before I begin and how much research I need to do. A novel for adults, because it's longer, takes a year or more. When my work is going well, I wake early in the mornings, hoping it's time to get up. When the writing is hard and the words are flat, I'm not very pleasant to be around.

Getting an idea for a book is the easy part. Keeping other ideas away while I'm working on one story is what's difficult. My books are based on things that have happened to me, things I have heard or read about, all mixed up with imaginings. The best part about writing is the moment a character comes alive on paper, or when a place that existed only in my head becomes real. There are no bands playing at this moment, no audience applauding--a very solitary time, actually--but it's what I like most. I've now had more than 120 books published, and about 2000 short stories, articles and poems.

I live in Bethesda, Maryland, with my husband, Rex, a speech pathologist, who's the first person to read my manuscripts when they're finished. Our sons, Jeff and Michael, are grown now, but along with their wives and children, we often enjoy vacations together in the mountains or at the ocean. When I'm not writing, I like to hike, swim, play the piano and attend the theater.

I'm lucky to have my family, because they have contributed a great deal to my books. But I'm also lucky to have the troop of noisy, chattering characters who travel with me inside my head. As long as they are poking, prodding, demanding a place in a book, I have things to do and stories to tell.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best Alice book!, July 1, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Alice On The Outside (Mass Market Paperback)

Although this book contains some "adult" content, it still is a very good read. Alice learns the value of skin and hair color, when her school sponsers a week of judging people by hair color. A dance is coming up and Alice and her two best friends have fun getting ready for it. Alice's friends also learn some values and one gets sexually abused. This book is really good with a suprising twist! Read it for yourself!

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Information Undercover?, January 5, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Alice on the Outside (Hardcover)

As most kids read these books and think that they are great, that they can really relate to Alice, they may not be seeing what else they can get from her. Alice asks questions and goes through things that many kids are too shy to ask about or their parents don't discuss with them. Through these books, you can get accurate information in a way that you won't be embarrassed about but still are entertained. Alice is a modern hero: realistic and down-to-earth but still has the problems of a normal teenager.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Alice on the outside, January 5, 2004

A Kid's Review

This review is from: Alice On The Outside (Mass Market Paperback)

Phyllis Reynolds Naylor(author) really describes what it is like to be a teenage girl. Naylor puts all of the problems of being a teenager together, your date getting ill for a big dance, your dad humiliating you by interupting the most intense kiss you have ever had, and not having a mother to talk to about stuff you need a girl to talk to about. In this story all of that happens to Alice when her life gets more complicated then ever. This hilarious must-read will spark the interest of any Jr.High girl.