Lovingly Alice [Hardcover]

Phyllis Reynolds Naylor (Author)

Book Description

Series: Alice

Alice McKinley is finding that fifth grade is full of mysteries.

Mystery #1: Where has her best friend Sarah's family disappeared to?
Mystery #2: Why is her father going to a concert with a WOMAN?
Mystery #3: Isn't a period what's at the end of a sentence?
Mystery #4: How can Lester go to the prom with a broken leg?
Mystery #5: How exactly are babies made?

Alice isn't too sure about any of these things, but on top of doing her homework, playing with Oatmeal, trying to keep Lester's girlfriends straight, and setting her dad up with the school nurse, she's determined to get to the bottom of them!

The last of the prequels to the beloved Alice series, Lovingly Alice lets younger readers get to know the girl everyone wants to be friends with and proves once again that Phyllis Reynolds Naylor understands all the fun of being a girl.

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Grade 4-6–This last of three prequels leading up to the original "Alice" series is just as funny and touching as the previous books. Here, the fifth grader experiences the emotional ups and downs of relationships with family and friends. When her friend Sara moves without telling her, Alice is afraid she's living on the street and sets off to find her. Alice's dad starts to date, and 18-year-old Lester expects her to ward off unwanted calls by a girl who likes him. When Alice's beloved cat dies, her anger at everything unjust erupts. As in the earlier books, Lester is a tease, and her dad is patient and caring. Alice is concerned about being motherless and muddled about sex, and there's a fair amount of talk about it, much to Lester's embarrassment. The book ends with their dad buying a house in Silver Spring, a place Alice likes, although she's torn about leaving her friend Rosalind. She does her best to make the separation less painful for her friend and herself. And it's her efforts to make the best of difficulties that cause young readers love her.–Tina Zubak, Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, PA
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Gr. 4-7. Alice is beginning fifth grade in this third and final prequel to The Agony of Alice (1985), which began the beloved series about a motherless girl trying to grow up and make sense of her world. Whether Alice is trying to find out about sex or religion, shaving her legs, or story problems in math, her search is funny, honest, and anguished. After one of Alice's friends gets her period, the girls read a book about puberty, but they want to know more. Alice asks her dad and older brother over dinner: "How does the man get his sperm inside the woman?" Alice's grief for her mother is an open wound, and when her kitten dies and her best friend leaves without saying good-bye, she finds herself mad at God and everyone around her. Fans will grab this. Hazel Rochman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 176 pages
• Publisher: Atheneum (August 24, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0689843992
• ISBN-13: 978-0689843990
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 2.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,558,825 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

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great, February 19, 2005

A Kid's Review

This review is from: Lovingly Alice (Hardcover)

This is a good book because it deals with real 5th grade issues like periods and sex. At fifth grade you're becoming a teen, and this book helps you deal with it!

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars fun, enjoyable, March 6, 2006

A Kid's Review

This review is from: Lovingly Alice (Paperback)

some moms says alice is not good and has bad contients but as a kid I know this is just about a girl growing up and it's very interesting.

11 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars PARENTS, BE WARNED, April 6, 2005

By 

Jennifer A. Platt (stamford, ct USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Lovingly Alice (Hardcover)

Let me start by saying that in NO way am I a prude and I don't want my daughter growing up repressed. I want other parents to be aware, however, of some of the more graphic content in this book. My daughter, who is 9 and in the 4th grade looked kind of freaked out when she was reading a chapter of this book. She had read the 2
previous ALice books and loved them, so I wasn't really worried about the books content. How bad could it be, when it was about a girl in the 5th grade? Well, watch out, because if your child is
still uncomfortable about the topic of sex (which mine happens to be, even after many heart to hearts when she has questions)this book is going to freak your child out. It may also freak out some parents.I don't suggest that people stay away from this book,
because like the other Alice books we've read it is well written
and fun in most ways. I just want parents to be aware of what their child is reading. I don't think most people expect details like these in a book about fifth graders!