Alice, a UU, is in 8th grade.

Alice's Aunt Sally gets it in her head that she has to be the "woman of the house" and she tries to become a caretaker for her father and brother. This includes planning a 50th birthday party for her father. She is the same sympathetic, likable, occasionally foolish Alice that we've learned to love in the previous books.

But I've rated this one lower than the others due to one of the minor side plots, which is all the rest of this review will discuss. Apart from the issue discussed below, this book is just as good as the others in the series.

A couple of things to note: One, this book was originally published in 1993, and I read it in 2017. Two, the target audience is middle school age girls, and I am an adult man with two middle school age daughters.

In a minor side line that runs through the whole book, a group of the boys in school have taken it upon themselves to give all the girls nicknames. They will assign each girl the name of a state, based on the girl's breasts. Alice and her friends Pamela and Elizabeth learn about this when the boys start calling Elizabeth "Illinois," which they have chosen to call her because she is flat chested.

Would middle school boys do something like this? Yes, some of them surely would. Reading about it as an adult in 2017 though, it jumps out as a first step in the long, increasingly severe spectrum of sexual harassment in which so many boys and men engage. The reaction of of Elizabeth is understandably absolute mortification. The reaction of Alice and Pamela is to hope that they get assigned mountainous states. They would be proud to be called "Colorado" or "Utah." The reaction of Alice's father is just to scoff at the immature foolishness of it and tell her not to worry about it. Towards the end, when Alice is nicknamed "North Carolina" she is thrilled, because Mt. Mitchell is the highest peak east of the Mississippi. So from my perspective today, Alice is proud that she's come out on top of a demeaning, sexually harassing and insulting game. This is the sort of thing that middle school age kids (girls as well as boys) will engage in with no thought to how it will affect the people they are assigning names to. Many people carry emotional scars for life, or have insecurities and inhibitions for life, due to things as simple as being named "Illinois" in 7th grade because their breasts hadn't developed yet.

I desperately wanted Naylor to have someone in the book speak to this issue, but she never did. The Alice books deal with a lot of issues that middle schoolers, particularly girls, will face. She generally offers some real wisdom, in a totally non-preachy way, into dealing with these things. She failed on this one. Perhaps in 1993, when she wrote it, I wouldn't have had these concerns. But reading it with the "hindsight is 20/20" of today, the whole sub-plot of boys naming girls, who did not ask to be part of their game, based on their breast size, made for quite uncomfortable reading. ( )

This book flew by so quickly. While I enjoyed my read I found the ending to be a little too much. I would have liked the subject of suicide to be in a separate book. It was too rushed and just sort of thrown in there. While this isn't my favorite of the series I do think it does add something to the group. ( )

Alice, a 12 year old approaching her 13th birthday, is beginning to fear the responsibility that comes with becoming a teenager. Her Aunt Sally provides Alice with advice on how she can become the woman of the household, which only becomes the source of more drama. Alice struggles with juggling school, family life, friends, and the list her Aunt suggests in maintaining a household. In addition to all the spring cleaning tasks, school, part time job, mending, doctor's visits, Alice plans and throws her father a surprise party for his 50th birthday. All of her tasks become far too difficult for her to handle. She gets an unexpected surprise when the class bully, Denise, befriends her and offers to help with the party. With the help of her friends, family and language arts teacher, Alice is able to find balance in her list of tasks and when tragedy strikes her school. The overall theme of the book details in the struggles of a girl growing through her teenage years.

I had started the Alice series when I was in 5th grade for summer reading. I had found the series as a young girl to be enjoyable. I can remember relating to Alice, and envied her ability to ask family and friends those ever embarrassing questions about growing up. Returning to the series was interesting, and this was as breezy and angsty as I had remembered. It is nice to know that Naylor maintains the awkwardness of the original Alice I was attached to in 5th grade.

I feel this series provides a good relate-able character for young girls. It provides a different kind of home life some readers may not be familiar with, albeit somewhat more common now (single parent). Alice is your typical awkward teenage girl who wants to do right by her dad, friends, and teachers. She worries about things (relationships, how others perceive her, homework) that most teenage girls would. She gets overwhelmed and reacts as your typical teenager. The language Naylor uses makes the book readable and enjoyable. It is a great book to use with young girls. ( )

Alice is almost thirteen, and, according to her Aunt Sally, that means she is almost the Woman of the House. This Alice interprets to be a catalyst for change of some kind. First, she insists that their motherless and wifeless family go get physical checkups…only to be surprised when her Dad insists that she gets one as well!

In addition, Alice has taken it upon herself to get her house in order and plan her father’s surprise fiftieth birthday party. Of course, it turns out that all these things are more than one twelve-year-old girl can handle, which is when platonic help comes in. Pamela, Elizabeth, and the ever-caring Patrick are in, but Alice gets a surprise in the form of a sort of friendship with Denise Whitlock, the girl who used to bully her. Turns out Denise has a few shocking surprises of her own, too.

April culminates in her dad’s party and a shocking event that makes her grow up even more. It’s not even being almost the Woman of the House, but the ever-interesting Alice just might be able to figure out how to do it. With a bit of help from everyone, of course. ( )