Achingly Alice [Paperback]

Phyllis Reynolds Naylor (Author), Kam Mak (Illustrator)

Book Description

Series: Alice

She loves him, she loves him not

Alice has decided she needs priorities in her life -- and the first is to get her favorite teacher, Miss Summers, to marry Alice's father. The only problem is the principal, Mr. Sorringer, wants to marry Miss Summers, too, and Miss Summers seems to be having trouble making up her mind.

How can someone be in love with two people at the same time? It doesn't make sense to Alice -- until Sam, her friend in Camera Club, starts to pay attention to her. Sam is quiet and gentle, and a terrific dancer -- Alice likes being with him. But Alice has been Patrick's girlfriend for almost two years -- so why is she interested in another guy?

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Gr. 6^-8. At a time of bleak realism in YA fiction, it's great to also have a book that makes you laugh out loud about a young teenager's struggle to grow up. Not that the issues aren't serious. In eighth grade now, Alice grapples with lies, loss, loyalty, and sexual awakening, even as she worries about what to wear to the school Valentine's Day dance. She is still obsessed with getting her widowed father to marry her gorgeous ex-teacher. Like her readers, Alice wants to talk to someone about her body and her sexuality. Does everyone masturbate? What is it like to have a pelvic exam? (Deliberately outrageous, she tells her father and brother at the dinner table about the three things that the doctor says can cause wetness "down there.") Is it all right to feel "wet and tingly" when her boyfriend Patrick kisses her? As always, the adults in her life are nearly all sympathetic, gentle, and funny. Her older brother, Lester, has the best lines, both wry and wise. When he tells her that she will get through a tough time--whether it's a bad hair day or the loss of someone she loves--she knows he is right. This tenth book in a great series reads more like a stop along the way than a complete novel, but Alice's fans will love it and wait for the next one. Hazel Rochman --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Kirkus Reviews

Readers who have, with Alice, been waiting impatiently for her widowed father and favorite teacher, Miss Summers, to pick a date will have to wait some more; the Alice series (Outrageously Alice, 1997, etc.) continues to feature comic twists, comfortably familiar characters who still have surprises to reveal, and a plot that includes some serious issues. As she tries to decide whether to stick with boyfriend Patrick or play the field, Alice accompanies Elizabeth on her first visit to a gynecologist and gets an earful afterward, goes from the high of having Miss Summers over for Christmas to the low of hearing that she spent New Year's Eve with another man, ruminates about topics as diverse as masturbation and careers, participates in a class project designed to analyze deceptive TV commercials, and struggles to cope with Miss Summers's devastating announcement that she'll be spending the next year in England as part of a teacher exchange. Naylor continues to usher Alice, and readers, toward adolescence with this well-knit, frequently hilarious story, cemented with buckets full of information, reassurance, and common sense. (Fiction. 10-13) -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 128 pages
• Publisher: Aladdin (August 1, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0689805950
• ISBN-13: 978-0689805950
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5.1 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,640,727 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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!