Alice the Brave [Hardcover]

Phyllis Reynolds Naylor (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1, 1995 | Series: Alice (Book 7)

A month before eighth grade begins, Alice realizes she is going to have to face something she's been afraid of forever. Everybody, she knows, is afraid of something: elevators, dogs, planes, spiders . . . but her fear is worse. It's going to bring absolute disaster to the rest of her summer, maybe to the rest of her life. The truth is she's afraid of deep water!

It's a hot August, and everyone in Alice's gang goes to Mark Stedmeister's swimming pool almost every day. Alice sits at the shallow end. She plays badminton. She makes excuses, and keeps her problem secret.

Meanwhile, Elizabeth and Pamela, Alice's two best friends, tackle problems of their own, and are more or less successful. Life is changing for everyone but Alice.

Bravery begins in little ways, with small steps. That's what Alice finally discovers. And after she faces this particular fear, she knows she can summon the courage to face other fears as well.

As in her previous adventures, Alice tackles some of the big problems of growing up with humor and enterprise and learns once again that a brother, a father, and friends can offer amazing amounts of help.

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Grade 6-8?Alice's friends are savoring their last month of vacation before entering eighth grade, spending every afternoon at Mark Stedmeister's pool?all except Alice, who is embarrassed to admit that she's terrified of deep water. Her father continues the romantic relationship he began in Reluctantly Alice (Atheneum, 1991) with her English teacher, Miss Summers. Alice wishes he would propose and supply her with a mother, but interferes and manipulates less than in previous titles about this engaging character; in fact, her longing for a mother is more understated as she begins to show her maturity and look to herself for answers. Her friend Elizabeth emerges from a phase of believing the human body and all its functions to be repulsive, and reads aloud explicit passages from the unexpurgated version of The Arabian Nights. Consumed by guilt about sneaking the book from her parents' bedroom, she seeks help from her priest. Meanwhile, Pamela is fascinated with passion and romance. Alice's problem is resolved when her older brother insists on teaching her how to swim, and she finishes the summer in triumph. The ends are tied up neatly, as usual, with much droll humor, poignant insight, and graceful narrative along the way. Naylor's understanding of adolescents is apparent, as each new situation totally absorbs the girls' attention and energy. The personal growth of the three adolescents keeps this seventh title in the series interesting as well as entertaining.?Joyce Adams Burner, formerly at Spring Hill Middle School, KS
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Gr. 5^-7. In the latest affectionate comedy about Alice, she spends the summer before eighth grade trying to overcome her secret fear of deep water. She's scared and too scared to say so. She's not sure if she'd rather die of embarrassment or die of drowning. With the lightest touch, Naylor shows that being in "over your head" is also a metaphor for taking chances. As always, Alice and her friends are intensely curious about sex ("mating" ) and about their developing bodies: in a hilarious chapter, they read the exciting bits from the unexpurgated Arabian Nights, and Alice examines the Playboy centerfold. How do you learn to kiss? Alice wonders, how do you practice? In a story that ranges from the mundane (giving her friend a deodorant for smelly armpits) to the mysterious, Alice's wry, funny, vulnerable voice expresses every girl's fears about what is "normal" in an imperfect world. Hazel Rochman

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 144 pages
• Publisher: Atheneum; 1st edition (May 1, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0689800959
• ISBN-13: 978-0689800955
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.8 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (20 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,138,344 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

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Alice the Brave, December 10, 1999

By 

Mandy (Osawatomie, Kansas) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Alice the Brave (Hardcover)

One of the stories I liked was Alice the Brave I would give this book at least five stars. It's about this girl named Alice who has a very deep fear of water. She's in a club which is more like a swimming club. Her friends meet at a pool and swim almost every day. Alice just stays at the 2foot part of the pool. Toward the end of the story her brother Lester teaches her how to swim. My overall opinion about this book is that you can relate it to your lives or things that happen in teenage years. My favorite part is when she over comes her fear. The only thing I didn't like was that it could of been a little better or more specific. If you don't think this review is very detailed then read the book! If you like fear, romance, sillyness, and of course happy endings read this book.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars basically pornography, August 15, 2010

By 

oddfish - See all my reviews

This review is from: Alice the Brave (Alice (Quality)) (Paperback)

My 2nd grader reads at a very advanced level and she and her grandmother picked this up one day at the library -- thank goodness most of the first few pages went right over her head before we took a closer look at the content. We passed this book around at a dinner party and it had all the adults blushing. Read the firt 20-25 pages first before deciding what age-appropriateness. The excerpts from the Arabian Nights details graphic, sexual scenes that may be ok for some readers, but I don't believe it belongs in the hands of even middle schoolers unless accompanied by a very frank discussion with a responsible adult. This was listed on our 5th grade summer reading list, but I don't think that I know many 10 or 11 year olds that should be reading about having their breasts described as lovely fruits and their virginity lost.

4.0 out of 5 stars Funny and true, August 10, 2007

By 

Joanna Mechlinski (CT, USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Alice the Brave (Alice S.) (Paperback)

It's the summer before eighth grade, and all of Alice's friends practically live in Mark's pool. For weeks, Alice has managed to hide the fact she's afraid of deep water...until the boys threaten to throw her in, and Alice freaks out.

Her big brother Lester decides it's up to him to help Alice. She's not so sure, though, that she's ready to be helped...

Meanwhile, Alice and her best friends Elizabeth and Pamela are just as curious about sex as ever. Elizabeth smuggles a copy of "Arabian Nights" off her parents' shelf and reads excerpts aloud, confusing the girls even more. Plus, Alice's father is dating her seventh grade English teacher, and she has no qualms about badgering him with questions about their relationship. After all, she's just *got* to know!

Like the other "Alice" books, this one is funny and true, very realistic of an adolescent girl's hopes and worries.