Achingly Alice [Turtleback]

Phyllis Reynolds Naylor (Author)

Product Details

• Turtleback
• Publisher: Demco Media (April 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0606163328
• ISBN-13: 978-0606163323
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 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

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Best One Ever!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!, September 27, 2005

A Kid's Review

This review is from: Achingly Alice (Paperback)

When I got it i couldn't stop reading it! Its was soo good but really short! I think Alice and Patrick make the perfect couple but too bad they break up. (In a different one) I really reccomend this book but not to people under 10. (It gets a little too sexual at one point) This one really is the BEST ONE EVER!!!! :)

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Achingly Alice, February 8, 2005

By 

Book Worm - See all my reviews

This review is from: Achingly Alice (Paperback)

Over all, Achingly Alice was a really good book. Alice is trying to figure out how Mrs. Summers can love Mr. Sorringer and her dad at the same time, while she herself can't decide between Patrick (her boyfriend) and the cutie in her camera class, Sam. It's easy to relate to this book because it's set in present times in Silver Springs. Alice finally decides to wait it out and see what happens in the end when something suprising happens to Miss Summers. I would reccomend this book to girls ages twelve and up because of some of the things that happen to Alice and her friends. They are in eighth grade, so that is probably a good age to read this book.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Enchanting!, August 4, 2003

By 

"ruffledrain" (Tokyo, Japan) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Achingly Alice (Paperback)

I probably related the most to Alice in this book because of her sexual discovery and I think most girls will, too. Alice comes right out and says the stuff young girls are thinking and curious about and a lot of them are answered. If you are up tight and scared about bodily things, read this! If you're questioning where to draw the line with boys, read this! If you're wondering if you really are a womanly creature, read this! It made me feel a lot better and it probably will for you, too!

Blessed be!