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It’s Monday! What Are You Reading?
Spring break starts this week! This will be a much-needed break from work and classes to concentrate on reading and writing (both homework stuff AND some stuff for fun). Here’s what I’m in the middle of right now:
Reading Update:
Today is April 15. Tax Day. Have you done YOUR taxes?
I have read 33 books toward my goal of 80 for 2013. This means I am ahead on my reading!
Currently Reading:
It’s a very blue week on my currently reading shelf!
(all titles link to the book’s page on Goodreads)
The Testing by Joelle Charbonneau – I was lucky enough to score an e-galley from NetGalley. This has been my most anticipated read of they year. Very Hunger Games-esque, but with brains and intellect. I think. All I know is the hype is huge and I’m reading to dive in so I can come my my own conclusion about the book. (and apparently this cover isn’t the cover anymore…sooooo, sorry. Click the link to see the new cover.)
The Time Machine by HG Wells – I read this book in sixth grade, but decided it was time for a re-read. I bought the audiobook on Audible, but then it sat on my iPhone for months. Since it’s the only audiobook I’ve bought and not listened to, and it’s ONLY 4 hours long, I’m just doing it.
Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Saenz — This book won both a Stonewall Book Award (for LGBT books) and a Printz Honor medal (for YA books) from the American Library Association in January. I was thrilled when Simon & Schuster offered me the audiobook for review, so I’m enjoying it in my car!
What are you reading today?
It’s Monday! What Are You Reading?
Spring break starts this week! This will be a much-needed break from work and classes to concentrate on reading and writing (both homework stuff AND some stuff for fun). Here’s what I’m in the middle of right now:
Reading Update:
Today is March 11.
I have read 24 books toward my goal of 80 for 2013. I’m hoping that number goes way up over spring break!
Currently Reading:
(all titles link to the book’s page on Goodreads)
Always Alice by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor – I can’t believe I was so lucky to get a review copy of this before the release date in August. I’m 90% through, and it’s bittersweet to read the final book (#25) in the Alice series, charting Alice’s life from college to age 60.
The Elite by Kiera Cass – The second book in the Selection trilogy. It’s slow going, but probably because I’m only reading for 10-20 minutes at a time at the breakfast table.
Almost Perfect by Brian Katcher – I’m re-reading this one for a discourse analysis I plan to write for publication. It’s a book about a boy whose girlfriend admits that she was born a boy.
What are you reading today?
The Grooming of Alice (#12)
Thia is the last of the cheesy covers. These girls do NOT look 14.
In celebration of Banned Books Week, I’m posting a later review of an Alice book I read over the summer. The Alice series is one of the most banned series of all time, largely because of Naylor’s frank discussions of sexuality, religion, and other issues faced by Alice as she grows up (name an issue, Alice has faced it usually second-hand). You can read more about the Alice books at my Alice 101 post.
The Grooming of Alice
by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
Aladdin
Purchased from Amazon Marketplace
[#34 in my 75 book challenge]
And Alice is finally getting ready for high school!
Plot
It’s the summer before ninth grade, and Alice and her friends have decided to get in shape by running every morning. Alice is also volunteering three days a week as a candy striper at the hospital with Gwen and enjoying her best summer yet. However, Elizabeth seems to be taking the exercise thing too far and doesn’t appear to be eating, Pamela’s relationship with her father is rocky after her mother walks out with the NordicTrack instructor, Alice realizes someone she knows is in the hospital, and Lester is dating a high-maintenance new lady. To top it all off, Alice’s dad is going to England for two weeks to visit Miss Summers (where will he be sleeping?!) and Alice wants to spend some time alone with Patrick.
Issues Tackled
Exercise, body image, anorexia, lying, the anatomically correct names for the parts of female genitalia, running away from home, death.
Quotes
Lester, about Alice: “She just does that, Dad. Comes out with stuff that no civilized person would talk about in public. We’re raising a social ignoramus here.”
“Preadultry? Good grief, Elizabeth, does every sin have a prefix?”
FINAL GRADE: B I don’t think I remember reading this book, so it must have been one of the ones I didn’t read back in the day. I knew I’d missed some of them and read them all out of order, so it was good to finally read it. I get kind of annoyed with Alice taking tiny details and running with them, making up wild stories about what’s going on behind the scenes when she really know nothing about what going on. However, I think that’s typical for a thirteen-year-old (still at the age where the world revolves around them). Alice is starting to grow up, and I know she’s grow out of this phase. She’s already becoming more independent and mature.
Have you read any Alice books? (I asked this question last spring, but I’ll ask again because I know I have new readers)
Alice on the Outside (#11)
Worst. Cover. Ever. Seriously, this cover sucks and I'm glad they are redoing it.
Alice on the Outside
by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
Simon Pulse
Checked out via Interlibrary Loan
[#33 in my 75 book challenge]
And now Alice starts to really experience some weighty issues…and there are so many more to come in this series! This one took me some time to find, since it is the one Alice book my school library doesn’t own. It is also the one book I didn’t buy when I bought the rest from Amazon. I think I was buying both library books and personal books around the time this one was no longer in print because it was up for re-release with a new cover. Now that I own #1-10 and #12-21, I just have a few more to buy so I can complete my collection on my shelf!
Plot
It’s the winter of eighth grade, and Alice doesn’t believe that prejudice exists in her town…until the entire school participates in a diversity awareness week. Students are divided and given privileges based on hair color and some interesting issues are brought to life. In addition, one of Alice’s friends comes out to her and Alice asks her cousin, Carol, what sex feels like so she can finally have this important question answered. The book ended with the eighth grade formal, which Alice has been looking forward to for months, and it brings both disappointing and fun surprises.
Issues Tackled
Prejudice. Kissing horizontally. Lesbians. Being left out. What sex feels like. Liking two boys at the same time.
Quotes
Elizabeth, on Pamela: “What if she gets pregnant and stays inside all summer and never goes over to Mark’s pool and goes around in baggy clothes till September, and then she keeps skipping gym? And around Christmas, when everyone else is singing carols, what if Pamela goes out in the garage and has a baby in the backseat of her dad’s Chevrolet, and it’s a little boy, only she can’t stand the thought that he might grow up to be a rapist too like his father, so she…she’d go to prison for murder, Alice! You and I would have to go visit her every Sunday and take her fruit!”
“I wondered why people seem so afraid that someone who’s gay or lesbian might make a pass at them. All you have to say it no, just like you’d tell a guy who was hitting on you.”
FINAL GRADE: B+ I don’t think I remember reading this one at all. The lesbian characters show up in the other books, but I don’t know that I ever actually read the book where Alice first learns this information about her friend. What I liked best was how Naylor writes Alice’s character’s response to her friend coming on to her. Alice is a bit confused and surprised, but handles the situation well and honestly. I was in the ninth grade when I really first interacted with a friend who was openly gay, so I think Naylor’s timing for this event in Alice’s life was perfect.
Do remember the first time someone came out to you? How did you handle it?
Achingly Alice (#10)
Are we done with these cheesy covers yet? I guess I just don't like middle grades covers.
Achingly Alice
by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
Aladdin
Purchased from Amazon Marketplace
[#32 in my 75 book challenge]
More Alice? You don’t say!
Plot
It’s the winter of eighth grade, and Alice is setting her priorities in life. Number one is getting her dad to marry Sylvia Summers. Miss Summers spends Christmas with the McKinleys (and even sleeps in Alice’s room!), but spends New Year’s with her old flame — Vice Principal Jim Sorringer. Alice learns that meddling in other people’s love lives may not be the best solution. She also accompanies Elizabeth to the doctor for a pelvic exam, continues to navigate her relationship with Patrick, helps Pamela deal with her parents’ separation, enjoys the camera club, goes to a Valentine’s dance, and makes a commercial for her social studies class.
Issues Tackled
Lying, pelvic exams, yeast infections, masturbation, liking two boys at the same time, setting goals, telling the truth, wife swapping, divorce, new baby brother, sexual feelings.
Quotes
Lester, about Alice: “She just does that, Dad. Comes out with stuff that no civilized person would talk about in public. We’re raising a social ignoramus here.”
“Preadultry? Good grief, Elizabeth, does every sin have a prefix?”
FINAL GRADE: B I don’t think I remember reading this book, so it must have been one of the ones I didn’t read back in the day. I knew I’d missed some of them and read them all out of order, so it was good to finally read it. I get kind of annoyed with Alice taking tiny details and running with them, making up wild stories about what’s going on behind the scenes when she really know nothing about what going on. However, I think that’s typical for a thirteen-year-old (still at the age where the world revolves around them). Alice is starting to grow up, and I know she’s grow out of this phase. She’s already becoming more independent and mature.
Outrageously Alice (#9)
I have a feeling this cover alone made some parents say "NO WAY" to this book for their daughters.
Outrageously Alice (#9)
by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
Aladdin
Purchased from Amazon Marketplace
[#31 in my 75 book challenge]
Plot
Alice is going to be a bridesmaid in her brother’s ex-girlfriend’s wedding, and she’s feeling very grown up. In between learning all about weddings, wedding parties, and wedding nights there’s also a lot going on at school. She decides to join a club, trying both the Explorer’s Club and the Camera Club. She also get groped in a closet at the Haunted House, dyes her hair green, accidentally dyes some clothes pink, accompanies her father to the emergency room, and gets some unwanted attention from an older boy. It’s just another few months in the life of Alice McKinley.
Issues Tackled
Wedding nights, lingerie, wanting to be different, navigating physical relationships with boys, make-up, laundry, joining clubs.
Quote
“I guess the kind of person you really are will win out in the end; it’s not something, like green mousse, you can just apply.”
FINAL GRADE: B While I do remember this one from reading it years ago, I only remembered the hair dying and the lingerie…and that’s most likely because those two scenes are featured on different versions of the book. However, in reading them back-to-back in order like I have been lately, it’s kind of forgettable. There’s usually one or two major events in each book that stand out, and the rest is the general progression of Alice’s life. She gets a little less awkward, a little more knowledgeable, and a little more confident in each book. Sometimes she takes a step or two backward, but mostly she’s slowly moving forward. Within one book this may not be noticeable, but by this book it is obvious that Alice has come a long way over the course of nine books and two years. And she still has a looooong way to go!
What crazy things did you do as a teenager to get noticed or stand out?
Alice 101
So I’ve been talking a lot about the Alice series by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor lately as I’m re-reading my way through all of the books. However, I figured this series needs a little bit of explanation for those who are unfamiliar with what it’s all about and why I love it SO MUCH. So I’m writing you a post on Alice 101 as a primer on the series.
What Is It?
Phyllis Reynolds Naylor published the first Alice book in 1985, The Agony of Alice. Starting with book #3 (Reluctantly Alice) in 1991, Naylor has written and published one book every single year. Book #24, Alice on Board, comes out this May. The final book, Always Alice, will come out in May 2013.
The series starts with Alice in the sixth grade, and ends with Alice graduating from high school. The final book will tell what happens in Alice’s life in college through age 60. The reading level, length, and content all grow with Alice — so the earlier books are short, typical middle grades books. The later books are longer, more intense YA novels. In Alice’s high school years, there are three books for each year of school: summer, fall, and spring. Alice faces some of the issues herself, but mostly she experience things second hand: teen pregnancy, discrimination, divorce, death, etc.
When and Where
The series started in 1985 and ends in the current day, so some of the early books feel a bit dated. In general, though, Naylor tries to make the story “timeless” so as to appeal to readers for generations to come. Alice lives in Silver Springs, Maryland.
Characters
Though many characters come and go from Alice’s life, these are the major players throughout the series:
Alice McKinley — Alice is strawberry-blond and quite average. She’s shortish, not quite fat or skinny, intelligent but not a genius. She’s open-minded, awkward, and not afraid to ask questions. Throughout the series she spends a lot of time seeking female role models because she lost her mother to leukemia at age 5.
Pamela Jones — Alice’s best friend since 7th grade. Pamela is blond and boy-crazy, and not afraid to take risks. Sometimes she gets herself into trouble by getting involved in situations she’s not ready for.
Elizabeth Price — A beautiful brunette with creamy skin, Elizabeth is Catholic and sheltered. She’s scared of all things related to sex, bodily functions, and boys. She gets better as the series continues, but she is the most conservative of Alice’s friends.
Gwen Wheeler — Gwen first appears in #11, Alice on the Outside. She’s African-American, brilliant, and wants to be a doctor when she grows up. Over time she becomes best friends with Alice, Pamela, and Elizabeth.
Ben McKinley — Alice’s dad. He manages a music store called The Melody Inn. He is a sweet, gentle man who likes to write letters and has a master’s degree, but he is sometimes clueless on how to raise a teenage girl.
Sylvia Summers — Alice’s 7th grade language arts teacher who starts dating Alice’s dad when Alice sets them up in #4, All But Alice. Alice loves Miss Summers and desperately wants her to become her stepmom.
Lester McKinley — Alice’s older brother. He’s seven years older, and in college for much of the series. He’s a typical college guy, and dates several different women throughout the series.
Crystal Hawkins and Marilyn Rawley — Two girls that Lester dates through much of the series, and Alice sees both as female role models.
Aunt Sally — Alice’s mother’s older sister, who lives in Chicago and checks up on Alice’s family regularly. Aunt Sally is kind of old-school. Her daughter, Carol, is in her early twenties and Alice ADORES her.
Patrick Long — Alice’s main love interest throughout the series. He’s very, very smart and a talented drummer.
Why I Love It
I love Alice because she feels real. In developing a character over twenty five novels and watching her grow up, readers really see Alice change over time. A lot of the series focuses on Alice wondering when she’s going to grow up, what life is like for grown-ups, and how she’s going end up. As a teenager reading the book, I had the same questions. Watching Alice grow up was like watching an older sister go through life before I had to go through it myself. Alice’s personal thoughts often mirrored my own, especially when she thought things that I would never had admitted to my friends! I wouldn’t say I felt “alone” as a teenager, but she certainly made me feel more normal.
Naylor writes Alice as a very honest, imperfect character. She asks questions, makes mistakes, and tells it how it is (though sometimes quite awkwardly). The external thought process is just as important as the internal thought process in answering the questions about growing up.
I also like the Alice series because Naylor doesn’t shy away from real issues. These issues are a real part of growing up, and sometimes appear on kids’ radars earlier than we’d like — but that doesn’t mean kids don’t have questions! For example, Alice deals with a friend’s suicide in the seventh grade. She deals with issues about sexuality, racism, divorce, drugs, bullying, death, and the list goes on and on. Sometimes the topics feel a bit like an after school special, but I know I dealt with almost all of those in some capacity by the time I left high school. It’s reality. But Naylor also focuses on things I’ve rarely seen other authors focus on: teaching girls to be aware of their own anatomy, what sex feels like, female role models, how to put in a tampon, etc. Most of these moments are brief, but important. I know I learned a few things from Alice in my pre-teen years.
While I give most of the individual Alice books a B, the series as a whole gets an A+ from me. It is realistic and unafraid. The very fact that it’s one of the most challenge series of the past two decades, according to the American Library Association, should tell any reader that this is good stuff. I read the series in the late nineties, my students read the series today, and I hope my future daughter/niece reads them, too.
The Books
Here are the books in the series, in order, which links to my reviews of each:
- The Agony of Alice (all of 6th grade)
- Alice in Rapture, Sort of (summer between 6th and 7th)
- Reluctantly Alice (7th)
- All but Alice (7th)
- Alice in April (7th)
- Alice In-Between (7th)
- Alice the Brave (summer between 7th and 8th)
- Alice in Lace (8th)
- Outrageously Alice (8th)
- Achingly Alice (8th)
- Alice on the Outside (8th)
- The Grooming of Alice (summer between 8th and 9th)
- Alice Alone (9th) (all in pink packaged as I Like Him, He Likes Her)
- Simply Alice (9th)
- Patiently Alice (summer between 9th and 10th)
- Including Alice (10th) (all in red packaged as It’s Not Like I Planned It This Way)
- Alice on Her Way (10th)
- Alice in the Know (summer between 10th and 11th)
- Dangerously Alice (11th) (all in blue packaged as Please Don’t Be True)
- Almost Alice (11th)
- Intensely Alice (summer between 11th and 12th)
- Alice in Charge (12th)
- Incredibly Alice (12th)
- Alice on Board (summer between graduation and college)
- Always Alice (age 18-60)
Alice In Lace (#8)
What a weird cover.
Alice in Lace
by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
Aladdin
Purchased from Amazon Marketplace
[#30 in my 75 book challenge]
So it’s basically going to a Alice book review every Wednesday for the next two months or so. Yeah. Because I read THAT MANY of them over spring break.
Plot
Now that Alice and her friends are in eighth grade, they feel like the big kids on campus. And Alice is getting married to Patrick! No fear, it’s just a school project in their “Critical Choices” unit in health class. Pamela is a teen mom and Elizabeth is buying a car. Alice celebrate Lester’s 21st birthday, Patrick is upset because Alice never kisses him first, Elizabeth is in love with a teacher, Alice finds out that Miss Summers has been dating another man besides her father, Alice’s dad hires a new girl at the Melody Inn, Alice stands up for the truth when she feels a lie has been told, a real wedding is announced, and a baby is born (Elizabeth’s baby brother). It’s just a few months in the life of Alice McKinley, huh?
Issues Tackled
Teacher/student sexual misconduct, financial responsibility, teen pregnancy, wedding nights, childbirth, buying a car, apartment shopping, wedding planning.
Quotes
“I wondered how many of the babies born in this hospital had changed lives around completely, for better or worse. How many dreams they’d begun and how many they’d ended.”
“Was it worth it, all these bold and beautiful plans? Or did it just set you up for disappointment somewhere down the line?”
FINAL GRADE: B I liked the teacher and how he taught this course. I wish I could teach something like this with my students, because the lessons learned are important ones, even if the situations were hypothetical. I think all the Alice books from her eighth grade year should be packaged together as one edition — everything in these books is so in-between that sometimes it feels like nothing major has actually happened.
What life lesson do you wish someone had taught you in seventh grade? What part of being a “grown up” was the hardest to adjust to? (My answer? Paying taxes!)
Alice The Brave (#7)
The old school cover that I ended up with. Not sure how I feel about it.
Alice The Brave
by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
Aladdin
Purchased from Amazon Marketplace
[#29 in my 75 book challenge]
Since I read a lot of these over spring break, I’m going to spread the reviews out a bit to avoid Alice fatigue.
Plot
In the summer between seventh and eighth grade, Alice is spending a lot of time at Mark’s pool with her friends. However, she lives in constant fear of her friends finding out that she has a terrible fear of deep water. Elizabeth steals her parents’ copy of Arabian Nights and reads the racy parts to Pamela and Alice (and then feels guilty), Alice’s dad takes Miss Summers on the family camping trip, Patrick and Alice are dating again, Pamela breaks up with Mark, and Elizabeth starts to come out of her shell.
Issues Tackled
Overcoming fears, hysterectomies, widowed parent dating again, questions about sex, curiosity about sex, religion, Catholic confession, telling a friend she needs to wear deodorant.
Quotes
“The fact is, I guess, nobody knows what it’s like to be in a certain situation except the one who’s in it.”
“if I didn’t overcome this fear now, it would be the first of many. I would have given in, so it would be easier to give in the next time I was afraid of something. Then the next.”
FINAL GRADE: B I’m starting to get really tired with how slowly these books move in Alice’s junior high years. Even though the books are short, there are five for each year Alice is in school! However, I do love that these books were written when I was the age that Alice is in the story. And, as always, Alice gets high grades because the overall story of the series is superb and realistic.
Did you ever have an embarrassing fear you had to overcome? Do you still have any embarrassing fears?
Alice In-Between (#6)
Not the cover of the copy I read -- but a cover that actually shows what happens in the book!
Alice In-Between
by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
Aladdin
Already owned
[#27 in my 75 book challenge]
In the sixth book in the Alice series, Alice is finishing up seventh grade and starting summer vacation feeling a little bit in-between. She’s not a kid, but not a teenager. Her brother takes her out for a very grown-up night on the town, she travels with her two best friends alone on a train to Chicago, and she continues to wonder if her dad’s girlfriend (Alice’s language arts teacher, Ms. Summers) is going to be her new step-mom.
In addition, Alice goes to dinner at Patrick’s house, saves her brother from complete disaster on several occasions, visits her sixth-grade teacher in the hospital, saves Crystal from a bad date, and learns about the pencil test (if your breast can hold up a pencil on its own, you need to wear a bra). Alice isn’t a superhero or a boy wizard or the face of a dystopian civil war, but she is a regular teenage girl who thinks and feels all the random, weird, awkward thoughts that I thought when I was twelve. And that’s why I love her.
Sometimes I think Phyllis Reynolds Naylor is a genius for being able to write in the teenage voice so well. Sometimes you want to shake Alice, sometimes you want to congratulate her. Sometimes I see myself in her, and sometimes I wish my future daughter could be like her. She’s not perfect, but she’s not annoying.
The most interesting thing about this particular volume is the trip that Alice, Pamela, and Elizabeth take on the train to Chicago. The actual visit is fairly normal, but the train ride there was the main event of the story…where Pamela tries to act older and mature, but ends up capturing unwanted attention from a somewhat-intoxicated older gentleman. The effect of this event on all of the girls, though subtle, is apparent in their actions for the rest of the book. This scene really speaks to the pre-teen need to grown up physically before growing up emotionally, and Naylor clearly gives her message without preaching. I do think the parents in the story under-reacted to the events a little bit, but I guess these were different times? (Was 1996 “different times?” For goodness sakes, I was 12 in 1996 and my mom would have flipped!)
FINAL GRADE: B I think all the Alice books are going to end up getting B’s. They just aren’t good enough on their own to get “OMG A+” ratings. The true value here is in the books as a series, watching Alice deal growing up. She goes from embarrassment over buying jeans in sixth grade to far more mature issues in the later books. I think I am now at the point of the series where Naylor really hits her stride and knows what she’s doing with Alice, so I’m quite ready to keep reading!
