| Adolescence & Coming of Age |
| Social Themes |
| Juvenile Fiction |
| Self-esteem & Self-reliance |
Summary
Summary
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.
Author Notes
Phyllis Reynolds Naylor was born in Anderson, Indiana on January 4, 1933. She received a bachelor's degree from American University in 1963. Her first children's book, The Galloping Goat and Other Stories, was published in 1965. She has written more than 135 children and young adult books including Witch's Sister, The Witch Returns, The Bodies in the Bessledorf Hotel, A String of Chances, The Keeper, Walker's Crossing, Bernie Magruder and the Bats in the Belfry, Please Do Feed the Bears, and The Agony of Alice, which was the first book in the Alice series. She has received several awards including the Edgar Allan Poe Award for Night Cry and the Newberry Award for Shiloh.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (4)
School Library Journal Review
Gr 6-8Alice's friends are savoring their last month of vacation before entering eighth grade, spending every afternoon at Mark Stedmeister's poolall 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 (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Horn Book Review
The summer before eighth grade, Alice and her friends spend days at a swimming pool, and Alice works to disguise her fear of deep water. With her older brother's help, she conquers her fear and also faces her worries that her best friends are changing and leaving her behind. The most recent addition to Naylor's growing list of titles about Alice is full of humor and warmth and an understanding of the difficulties inherent in growing up. From HORN BOOK 1995, (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
Following Naylor's six earlier books about this heroine (Alice In Between, 1994, etc.), this installment finds Alice and friends Pamela and Elizabeth on the eve of eighth grade, and smoothly chronicles their twelfth summer. It's a summer of guilty secrets and secret fears. Unknown to anyone, Alice (whose swimmer mother died of leukemia) is terrified of deep water; more than drowning, she dreads looking weird to the boys who hang around Mark's pool. Unknown to Mark, Pamela plans to dump him; and unknown to her parents, Elizabeth has borrowed their Arabian Nights, piquing everyone's interest in ``Yemeni wrigglings'' and ``Abyssinian sobbings.'' In the course of the summer Alice's Dad dates but doesn't get engaged to English teacher Miss Summers; her brother Lester doesn't choose between his two girlfriends; and, in spite of an ominous chain letter, nothing bad happens to anyone. With a swimming lesson from Lester, Alice conquers her pool phobia in a single afternoon and resolves not to get stuck in life's shallow end. Elizabeth starts making up for lost time with the boy who dumped her because she wouldn't kiss him; and Pamela starts wearing deodorant, the subject of a whole chapter entitled ``Armpits.'' Fans of the series or those undergoing their own suburban teen angst will not be disappointed; others will find Alice unchallenging. (Fiction. 10-14)
Booklist Review
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
