Alice-by-Accident - Softcover

Banks, Lynne Reid

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0380815605 ISBN 13: 9780380815609

Publisher: HarperCollins, 2002

Synopsis

"It's just so stupid, Brandy asking us to write our lives for homework!

I remember enough things on my life to keep me writing for about a million hours."

As Alice struggles with her class assignment for Miss Brand, she discovers that she has even more to say about her life than she thought. Most of it's too private to write for school, so she decides to record her autobiography in a secret notebook. There she writes about the mess between her mother, a "professional single parent," her actress grandmother, who "loves her to distraxion," but keeps interfering and having rows with her mum, and a dad she's never seen.

About this title

Review:

Writing convincingly in a young person's voice poses a huge challenge even to an experienced author like Lynne Reid Banks (The Indian in the Cupboard and others)--probably second only to writing in authentic-sounding dialect. Banks manages to do both brilliantly in the public and private notes of almost-10-year-old Alice Elizabeth Williamson-Stone, a sensitive, quirky British girl being raised by her struggling single mom. Alice dutifully reports her name in the first line of the book as part of an autobiography in her School Notebook, which continues throughout. But we soon learn that much of the turmoil in her world revolves around that name's origins. In her private Special Notebook, Alice later describes meeting her grandmother Gene at the age of three: "She rang Mum (in Brighton this was) and they had a row straight off because Williamson-Stone is on my birth certificate.... Gene said I had no right to that name because Mum wasn't married to my dad and she said Mum'd stolen it. Of course that's stupid, you can't steal a name... she could've called me Alice Pokémon or Alice Peanut Butter Sandwich." Alice's strong accent and idiosyncratic language can be a bit off-putting until you get to know her, but patience pays off, and the contrast makes her recounting of The Simpsons and Oprah Winfreythat much better.

Pulled between loving but strong-willed parental figures with their own complicated histories (and she hasn't even met her dad yet), Alice must find her way despite a rocky home life, an unexpected and emotional move, and the usual demands of a difficult age. But she shines through it all as a stalwart, likable, and--most importantly for middle-school readers--believable heroine. (Ages 9 and 12) --Paul Hughes

About the Author:

Lynne Reid Banks is a bestselling author for both children and adults. She grew up in London and became first an actress and then one of the first woman TV reporters in Britain before turning to writing. She now has more than forty books to her credit. Her classic children's novel, The Indian in the Cupboard, has sold more than ten million copies worldwide and was made into a popular feature film. Lynne lives with her husband in Dorset, England.

About this edition

• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0380815605
• ISBN 13: 9780380815609
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 144