Come and meet Alice. Here she is on the brink of being a teenager and discovering that life is just one big embarrassment. Things are not made any easier by the fact that she has no female role model - Alice's mother died when she was four - so there is just her father and older brother - and what could they possibly know about being a girl and growing up? Phyllis Reynolds Naylor's lively, witty style, mixed with poignance and perception, has captured the essence of adolescent anxieties as we follow Alice through the trials and tribulations of growing up. Starting back in a new school year can be nerve-racking for anyone - and Alice is no exception. She feels strange, she thinks that she looks strange and out of place, and is not used to being on the bottom rung of the ladder...She makes it through the first day without making any enemies and sets herself the goal of making it through the whole year. This, Alice finds, is often easier said than done - even her best friends make it difficult sometimes, but when Alice finds herself on the wrong side of the school bully, Denise "Mack-Truck" Whitlock, she feels that it might be downright impossible.