Life is like a dumpster. As soon as you get rid of one embarrassment, you pick up another. I knew that this was going to go on forever unless I found someone to set an example for me, and by the time I got the mustard off my shirt, I’d made up my mind: I’d adopt a mother. THERE’S A LOT ABOUT GROWING UP THAT’S confusing to Alice McKinley. Her mother died when she was five—how can her father and her nineteen-year-old brother, Lester, teach her what she needs to know? Even buying a pair of jeans can turn into a major embarrassment with Lester in charge. If only she had a role model, like the beautiful sixth-grade teacher Miss Cole. But instead Alice gets assigned to plain, pear-shaped Mrs. Plotkin’s class. Is Alice doomed to a life of one embarrassment after another? DON’T MISS Meet the author, watch videos, and get extras at KIDS.SimonandSchuster.com COVER DESIGN BY JESSICA HANDELMAN COVER ILLUSTRATION COPYRIGHT © 2011 BY JULIA DENOS ATHENEUM BOOKS FOR YOUNG READERS SIMON & SCHUSTER • NEW YORK AGES 10–14 • 0511 Here’s what fans have to say about Alice:* “I have read your Alice books ever since 5th grade (I’m in 10th grade now) and ever since the first one I read I can’t stop reading them! They are filled with such intrigue! … Alice and her friends and family just seem so real that I expect to look in a Maryland phone book under McKinley and find ‘Benjamin’!!”—Erin “I absolutely love your books and am looking forward to your many others. My friends love them too. We formed an Alice club at our school. On Tuesdays we get together at the same table at lunch and have a book talk.”— Katie “I was reading some historical fiction books about the late 1800s and I think it is amazing how little women really knew about their bodies and stuff like that. I’m glad that now we as girls have books like yours to read so we aren’t always clueless.”—Amy *Taken from actual postings on the Alice website. To read more, visit AliceMcKinley.com. PHYLLIS REYNOLDS NAYLOR includes many of her own life experiences in the Alice books. She writes for both children and adults, and is the author of more than one hundred and thirty-five books, including the Alice series, which Entertainment Weekly has called “tender” and “wonderful.” In 1992 her novel Shiloh won the Newbery Medal. She lives with her husband, Rex, in Gaithersburg, Maryland, and is the mother of two grown sons and the grandmother of Sophia, Tressa, Garrett, and Beckett. The Agony of Alice BOOKS BY PHYLLIS REYNOLDS NAYLOR Shiloh Books Shiloh Shiloh Season Saving Shiloh The Alice Books Starting with Alice Alice in Blunderland Lovingly Alice The Agony of Alice Alice in Rapture, Sort Of Reluctantly Alice All But Alice Alice in April Alice In-Between Alice the Brave Alice in Lace Outrageously Alice Achingly Alice Alice on the Outside The Grooming of Alice Alice Alone Simply Alice Patiently Alice Including Alice Alice on Her Way Alice in the Know Dangerously Alice Almost Alice Intensely Alice Alice in Charge Incredibly Alice Alice Collections I Like Him, He Likes Her It’s Not Like I Planned It This Way Please Don’t Be True The Bernie Magruder Books Bernie Magruder and the Case of the Big Stink Bernie Magruder and the Disappearing Bodies Bernie Magruder and the Haunted Hotel Bernie Magruder and the Drive-thru Funeral Parlor Bernie Magruder and the Bus Station Blowup Bernie Magruder and the Pirate’s Treasure Bernie Magruder and the Parachute Peril Bernie Magruder and the Bats in the Belfry The Cat Pack Books The Grand Escape The Healing of Texas Jake Carlotta’s Kittens Polo’s Mother The York Trilogy Shadows on the Wall Faces in the Water Footprints at the Window The Witch Books Witch’s Sister Witch Water The Witch Herself The Witch’s Eye Witch Weed The Witch Returns Picture Books King of the Playground The Boy with the Helium Head Old Sadie and the Christmas Bear Keeping a Christmas Secret Ducks Disappearing I Can’t Take You Anywhere Sweet Strawberries Please DO Feed the Bears Books for Young Readers Josie’s Troubles How Lazy Can You Get? All Because I’m Older Maudie in the Middle One of the Third-Grade Thonkers Roxie and the Hooligans Books for Middle Readers Walking Through the Dark How I Came to Be a Writer Eddie, Incorporated The Solomon System The Keeper Beetles, Lightly Toasted The Fear Place Being Danny’s Dog Danny’s Desert Rats Walker’s Crossing Books for Older Readers A String of Chances Night Cry The Dark of the Tunnel The Year of the Gopher Send No Blessings Ice Sang Spell Jade Green Blizzard’s Wake Cricket Man
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