The Alice Books by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor

A small town near me has been in a tizzy about the "Alice" books by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor. Some people from the town have brought a motion before the school board to have these books completely removed from the libraries of their public schools. That caught my interest. I had to find out what all the fuss was about. That means I needed to read these books and come to a decision of my own.

First of all, I must insist that no one has a right to complain about a book without first reading the book. I don't' want to hear that someone told so and so who told me that the book contained this or that. If one is going to complain about a book, one must first read the book, all of it, every single word. With that in mind, I went to the public library and checked out Alice on the Outside, Alice In-Between, and Achingly Alice. After reading those books, I have come to a few opinions.

The first book I read was Alice In-Between. I personally found the book well written. It as all the other Alice books are written in the first person. Alice is the narrator. Alice is a young teenager whose mother died when she was in kindergarten. She doesn't have memories of her mother at all. Her family consists of a father who is involved with his two children and an older brother with whom she alternately fights or in whom she confides as a friend. Alice, like almost every other singe teenaged girl in the world, has two very best friends, Pamela and Elizabeth. Pamela is a little wild while Elizabeth is a shy religious girl. Alice also has a boy friend named Patrick. Alice, her family and friends are well-developed and well rounded characters who ring true. All of the characters are interesting people. You want to know what is going to happen to them. That is the way it is supposed to be. These books interesting and fun. The problem is the subject matter.

In the first chapter of the Alice In Between, Alice tells us that her father is dating a woman that Alice loves and hopes he will marry. She then asks her dad if he is having sex with this woman yet. She says she is worried that he is going to let this woman get away. Her dad tells her no he isn't and that she isn't to ask this question of him again.

Later Alice's brother, Lester, takes her out for a birthday treat. They go to a fancy restaurant for dinner and then a show and then to a nightclub. She is thirteen. They go, but they do not drink. There they run into one of Lester's former girl friends who is on a date with a man what Alice describes as an octopus and a real jerk. So Crystal, the former girl friend, asks Alice to help her out, and her twenty-year-old brother and this twenty-year-old former girl friend leave the thirteen-year-old Alice in a bar to deal with the jerk while Crystal escapes. Does this bother anyone else?

Next comes a scene where Alice and her friends learn about the pencil test that should determine if a woman should or should not wear a bra. The point is a girl puts the pencil under her breast and lets go. If the pencil does not fall, the girl must wear a bra. If the pencil does fall, she can go without wearing a bra. She and her friends try this out. She then goes home and asks her brother if guys ever get together and measure the length of their ....uh ...mm, as it is put in the book. Then Alice asks her brother and her father who has just come into the room if boys ever put pencils under their testicles to see if they need to wear jock straps. At their expressions of shock, she then explains the pencil test to her father and brother.

One of the last big adventures in the book, Alice In-Between, Alice and her friends are invited to go spend a some time in the city with her Aunt Sally. The girls decide to ride the train. It is an over night trip. Alice and Elizabeth share a room, but Pam has a room to her self. On the way to the train, Alice notices her friends' appearance and dress. Elizabeth looks like a young girl. Pam looks like is eighteen. Pam likes this. On the train an older man hits on Pam who enjoys it, and since she is young, she has no idea whatsoever how to deal with it. Instead she pretends that she is a college student, meets this guy for dinner, and almost gets a great deal more for dinner than she ordered. With the help of Alice, Elizabeth and a kindly conductor, Pam escapes.

The next book I read was Achingly Alice. It begins where Alice In-Between leaves off. Alice's father is still dating the teacher she loves. She is still hoping that he will marry her. The only problem is that another man is also interested in this woman. Most of the book is taken up with Alice's concern about this love triangle.

Another plot in the book involves Elizabeth who has a medical problem, a yeast infection. She has to go to for a pelvic exam for the very first time. Now keep in mind these three girls are thirteen. Elizabeth's mother cannot go with her so she takes Alice and Pamela at her mother's suggestion. Does that sound like real life to you? How many women would actually let their thirteen-year-old daughter go for her first pelvic exam alone? The girls get to the doctor where a terrified Elizabeth goes in to see the doctor while her friends wait outside. Afterwards the girls run out of the office to place where Elizabeth describes in exact detail just what a pelvic exam is like. She also told her friends that the doctor told her that there are three things that can "make you wet down there;" sexual excitement, a yeast infection, or masturbation.

The very next scene Alice is helping her dad cook dinner and telling him about the pelvic exam. She ends by saying to him, "Being a girl is so messy."
His answer?

"Not any messier than boys," Dad said. "Boys ejaculate you know."

The next book I read was Alice on the Outside. In this book Alice is all of fourteen years old. In this book we reached new heights or lows depending upon one's point of view. The book begins with a visit from Alice's Aunt Sally and her grown cousin Carol who Alice loves. Carol sleeps in Alice's bed where they have a talk about sex. Alice asks Carol what sex feels like really. Carol tells her, in detail. Just in case anyone was wondering just how he or she could explain this to his or her fourteen-year-old daughter, Phyllis Reynolds Naylor has written a book that will do it for you.

After sharing her new knowledge with her friends they go to school to find out that they are involved in experiment about racism. This experiment is well thought out and well written. Each child in the school is assigned a cast determined only by hair color. Then they are given circles to wear so that everyone will know to what cast the other belongs. The gold group is the privileged group, the oranges are next, and the white group is at the bottom of the pile. The golds get all kinds of special privileges that the others don't get. The white group have no privileges at all. It is a good experiment and well written.

This experiment leads into another new experience for Alice. Alice makes new friends during the experiment since she and Pamela and Elizabeth are all in different groups. One of those new friends in a fourteen-year-old girl who thinks she is a lesbian and who makes a pass at Alice. Alice explains that she isn't interested, but she would like to be Lori's friend. Her dad congratulates her on her treatment of Lori. Frankly I agree that she treated this embarrassing situation correctly, but this book goes on to explore this story line.. Lori does get a friend with whom she holds hands and takes to a dance. Alice is sorry that though Lori and her friend are comfortable dancing fast dances together, she is sorry that Lori and her friend can't dance the slow dances together. There is a place in this book where Lori and her friend are being cruelly abused by other students. Alice puts a stop to this, as anyone should. Yet the overall theme of this story line is that homosexuality is just another way doing things. It is normal and should be treated as normal.

Ms. Naylor ends this book with another interesting scene in which Alice's brother, Lester, explains all about nocturnal emissions. That just about covers all the bases, doesn't' it?

I don't know about you, but if I had fourteen-year-old daughter whom I think needs to know the exact details of a pelvic exam, sexual excitement, masturbation, sex or nocturnal emissions, I want to be the one who tells her. I do not want Phyllis Reynolds Naylor telling her. I want to be the one to explain correct morality to her. I want to be the one who explains homosexuality and how to deal with a person who says he or she may be a homosexual. I want to teach her right from wrong. I want to be the one to tell her.

There may be a parent who after reading this book thinks that this would be a good way to explain those things to her daughter. That would be that mother's choice and her business, but it should be that parent's business. It needs to be the parent's choice and not the choice of the public school system.

A book's being in a school library says that this school endorses the book and thinks it is appropriate reading for their students. Based on that fact alone, Parents will assume that this book is age appropriate. In my opinion these books are not appropriate for middle school students. It means that the teachers of that school are free to recommend the book to any of their students. We must also remember that though these books are written for thirteen and fourteen year olds, children ten years old and up will be reading them. These books do not belong in middle schools. This is not a good idea. Of course, you will almost never get a public school teacher, librarian or official to agree with that.

Where do they belong? They belong in the public library. There any parent who thinks their children would benefit from these books, can check them out. Let the parent decide.