The author smiled at us and thanked us for being quiet. She said she had written thirteen books and wanted to tell us about them. And then she did the most amazing thing. She accidentally burped, right into the microphone. Mr. Dooley may not have had any breakfast that morning because of his car, but I’ll bet the author had eaten a very big breakfast because it was an awfully loud burp. Everybody laughed, even the fifth graders.
The author looked embarrassed. Mr. Dooley looked embarrassed for her. I felt horrible too. If teachers’ stomachs growled in public and authors burped into microphones, this meant I would probably keep right on doing embarrassing things too for the rest of my life.
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.
COVER ILLUSTRATION COPYRIGHT © 2012 BY JULIA DENOS
ATHENEUM BOOKS FOR YOUR READERS
SIMON & SCHUSTER • NEW YORK
AGES 7-12
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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
Alice on Her Way
Alice in the Know
Dangerously Alice
Almost Alice
Intensely Alice
Alice in Charge
Incredibly Alice
Alice on Board
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 and the Club of Mysteries
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’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 Year of the Gopher
Send No Blessings
Ice
Sang Spell
Jade Green
Blizzard’s Wake
Cricket Man
ATHENEUM BOOKS FOR YOUNG READERS
An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2002 by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
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Book design by Mike Rosamilia
The text for this book is set in Berkeley Old Style Book.
This Atheneum Books for Young Readers paperback edition September 2012
The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition as follows: Naylor, Phyllis Reynolds. Starting with Alice/Phyllis Reynolds Naylor.—1st ed. p.cm.
Summary: After she, her older brother, and their father move from Chicago to Maryland, Alice has trouble fitting in her new third-grade class, but with the help of some new friends and her own unique outlook, she survives.
ISBN 978-0-689-84395-2 (hardcover)
[1. Single-parent families—Fiction. 2. Family life—Fiction.
3. Friendship—Fiction.
4. Schools—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7. N24 Sq 2002 [Fic]—dc21 2001053610
ISBN 978-1-4424-4642-7 (paperback)
ISBN 978-1-4424-4645-8 (eBook)