Publication Date: September 1, 2002 | Series: Alice Books
Alice in Charge
It all starts when Aunt Sally reminds Alice that now that she's about to turn thirteen, she's the Woman of the House. Alice has always assumed that her father and her older brother, Lester, were there to take care of her. How can she possibly take care of them?
Alice's attempts to take charge of her household lead to one problem after another, culminating in a disastrous surprise birthday party for her father. And things aren't much better at school, where the seventh-grade boys are evaluating the girls in a way that has Alice and her friends pretty nervous. Alice doesn't think life can get any more complicated -- until a totally unexpected event shows her how wrong she is.
Naylor plunges her forthright and unusually winning series heroine ( All but Alice ) into the middle of seventh grade, when the responsibilities that go with turning 13 loom just ahead. As Alice struggles to assume the role of Woman of the House in the motherless home she shares with her older brother and father, the trials of domesticity compete with the anxiety of waiting for the boys in her grade to name her figure after the topography of one of the 50 states ("I knew what would be worse than Delaware: Rhode Island. Not the shape, the size"). With characteristic humor and the support of her old friends, Alice forges ahead, monitoring the romantic mishaps of her father and brother while coping with her own minor disasters. A subplot involves an abused classmate, whose suicide ends the book on a tragic note. The issue is carefully explored, without melodrama, and although it may surprise readers accustomed to jocularity from the Alice books, it is to the author's credit that Alice's development includes some serious problems. Deftly written dialogue and an empathetic tone neatly balance substantial themes with plain good fun. Ages 9-13. Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From School Library Journal
Grade 5-8-- When Aunt Sally writes, "Our little Alice is going to become a teenager. It's a big responsibility because you're the woman of the house now," it puts Alice under pressure. She discovers that running a household is not easy. On top of that, she feels helpless and out of control at school. And no wonder, for the boys in her class have started naming the girls after the U. S. states, based on their anatomy. Her father and college-age brother can't believe that she cares about such foolishness. But she does care and is sensitive about her changing body and facing other girls in the gym showers. Also, Al and her brother have to go for their first physical examinations. Curious preteens may be interested in the almost technical, systematic description of the exam. Al is also busy playing cupid for her father and her teacher, whom she would like to see him marry. On top of all these other concerns, a schoolmatke commits suicide, and Al feels guilty she did not recognize the warning signs. This third book about the likable heroine stands well on its own. It is light reading that will keep Alice's many fans happy. --Susannah Price, Boise Public Library, ID Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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.
In this book Alice is becoming a teenager and is now "woman of the house" and goes a little too far with the idea. Read all the other Alice books too, they're great!
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About to turn 13, Alice McKinley is preoccupied with her aunt's statement about needing to be the "Woman of the House" for her widowed father and older brother Lester. Her best efforts, however, usually turn to disaster...
To make matters worse, the seventh-grade boys are naming the girls after various states...depending on the size of their chests! Alice lives in terror, uncertain which would be worse: getting dubbed the name of a flat state, or being overlooked altogether.
Readers will enjoy hearing about Alice, who is just an ordinary girl going through ordinary things, but in such a humorous and interesting way, they can't help wanting things to turn out okay...
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5.0 out of 5 starsA funny book about a troubled girl, October 21, 2005
A Kid's Review
This review is from: Alice in April (Paperback)
Alice in April is about a girl who is having trouble with boys giving the girls at school nicknames of a state by it's geography, in other words ,"hills or no hills". If you like books that are funny, maybe even true life, Alice in April is the book for you.
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