I first discovered the Alice books about ten years ago, at a yard sale. I bought a whole bunch for a dollar and devoured them. Over the years I’ve mostly kept up with the series, although I’ve only read some of the high school books. I want to say up front that I have been a pretty devoted Alice fan. I’ve only fallen away from them somewhat as my bookseller life has picked up and my to-be-read piles have turned into mountains. I love Alice and I love her family.
I appreciate that Simon has been trying to differentiate the high school books from the younger books by publishing them with different cover styles. Young readers are not easily fooled, however, and as the Alice books have gone through different cover styles over the course of their publication (and so many series change cover style partway through), the changed covers aren’t going to keep 11 year olds (and their parents) from purchasing the high school books, thinking that they’re just getting the next book in an innocent middle-grade series. Also: on the “books by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor” page, all of the Alice books are grouped together under the heading “The Alice Books.” But on the facing page, there’s a list of “books for young readers” as well as “books for middle readers” and “books for older readers.”
But the Alice books are all listed together? (Anyone know if the whole list is printed inside the middle grade books as well?)
In this installment, it’s the summer before Alice’s senior year. During the first half of the book, Alice is consumed by her plan to go and visit her boyfriend Patrick at the U of Chicago where he’s taking summer classes. She decides before going that she wants to have sex with him, and procures some fancy underwear at Victoria’s Secret for just such an occasion. Her (uncharacteristically) naive parents believe her when she says she’s staying in the girls’ dorm and let her go off without really checking into the situation. Aaaand thus occurs what I like to call “the content.”
I really don’t think that the fifth grader reading LOVINGLY ALICE should be reading passages like the following: (spoilers ahead, and sexual language, leading to my first-ever cut on this blog)
His fingers moved gently, slowly, back and forth on the bare skin above my waistband, and I sat up for a moment and leaned forward so that he could unhook my bra. When we resumed the kiss, his hand moved up under the bra, over my bare breasts, and I could feel my nipples stiffen under his caresses.
A flood of warmth spread along my inner thighs. Patrick was breathing harder too.
I turned around and put my hand on the fly of his jeans. Patrick withdrew his arm and unzipped them. Slowly I put my hand under his boxers and gently stroked him, the first time I had ever touched a boy like this. And suddenly his lips parted, his head jerked back once, twice, then again, and I felt warm wetness as he ejaculated in my hand. He leaned against me, murmuring my name.
I could feel my own wetness and wanted his hand on me.
“I need you,” I whispered, and lay back in his arms again, my legs stretched out on the bench, and worked at unzipping my jeans. Patrick helped me tug them down a little, then gently slid his hand into my underwear and touched me. My throat seemed to be swelling in my excitement. I guided his fingers just where I wanted them, showing him how hard to press and how fast to do it, and a few minutes later, in the dark of Botany Pond, I came.
Okay. 3 problems here:
1. The entire passage just reads too…old. This is their first time doing this, but she’s able to touch him just right, and show him how to touch her? The wording feels like something out of a Johanna Lindsey novel rather than a YA book. And it’s so in-depth! Couldn’t we gloss over some of it?
2. I’m trying to think of another contemporary YA book that uses words like “ejaculated” and phrases like “I came.”
3. I don’t care how much you try to make this book look different, middle school girls are going to read it. They are. They’re going to read the quite in-depth tale of Alice and Patrick getting to third base on a public bench. (At night, sure, but not exactly in the middle of nowhere.)
And I really, really don’t want them to. Are they going to be scarred? Probably not. Will some of them self-edit? Sure. But why go there?
This is the problem when a series starts with characters of one age and then takes those characters years into the future over the course of a very long series. I don’t know what to do about it. I personally, as a reader, don’t want there to be fewer Alice books – I love the Alice books. But as a bookseller (and a parent) I want 11 year old girls to be reading about 11 year old girls, not 17 year old girls. They’ve got years yet to read about 17 year old girls. I am perfectly aware teenagers are having sex and cursing and making dirty jokes, and I never complain about those things in YA novels. But I think this situation is different, because we’ve “known” Alice since she was 10 (and aren’t they publishing some even younger books now?).
I think if this scene really needed to happen, maybe we could have faded to black.
I also can’t post this review without saying that I am very annoyed by the fact that Naylor advises fans to order through online bookstores:
My bookstore doesn’t have your most recent Alice book and neither does my library. How can I get a copy? Ask your bookstore if the book is on order. If not, ask them to special order a copy for you. You will find that online bookstores often get a book to you faster than a local bookstore.
Considering that we can order a book and have it for a customer in two days, that’s just not true. Perhaps online bookstores can get you a book faster than a CHAIN bookstore, but not faster than a good independent. I really, really wish more authors had prominent support of indies on their websites. Also, don’t we all (especially young people) spend far too much time online anyway? Why encourage an online transaction over one done face-to-face?
July 8th, 2009 - 4:39 am
I agree.
Kids are growing up too fast today as it is. Let them read about 11-year-olds when they’re 11.
I get that they might not want to “look” like they’re reading “baby books.” Go ahead and make the cover a bit more sophisticated, but leave the adult content to the adults! (Some of whom, by the way, aren’t mature enough for it either!!!)
July 8th, 2009 - 8:39 am
Hrm. I’m deeply conflicted about this.
I adore Alice, and I was once an 11-year-old who read wildly inappropriate books and learned much that I needed to learn from them not a moment too soon. I think that, as far as wildly inappropriate books go, this is a good one- Alice owns the interaction with Patrick, she articulates her desires, and generally provides a good role model for the way a first serious sexual experience should go. Given the general climate- where I am assaulted by sexually oriented ads on purportedly kid-friendly television, where the movie previews for PG movies are often teetering on the edge of horrendous, and, well, supply your own assault on kids, there are thousands to choose from- should we dismiss a loving, respectful, careful sexual encounter just because it’s likely to be read by an 11-year-old by mistake?
OTOH, do 11-year-olds need to read this? No. Well, some do and some don’t. But there are some who shouldn’t read this. Whose job is it to keep it from them?
OTOOH (picture me looking a little like Ganesh here), Naylor has the right and the responsibility to take her character wherever she wants to.
Yep. Deeply conflicted, but prone to err on the side of Alice and Naylor.
July 9th, 2009 - 4:42 pm
I’m more concerned with (as you mention) the IMHO unrealistically easy nature of what happens with Alice and Patrick here than with the content itself, which doesn’t strike me as any big deal. The girls in my class were reading Forever and such at that age, along with the more age-appropriate Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret.
Isn’t it the nature of kids to want to read books about kids older than themselves? It’s a tired comment, but I think we all know that the primary readers of Seventeen Magazine aren’t and (as far as I understand) never have been seventeen years old.
It’s hard, for me personally, to care much about an 11-year-old reading this “by mistake” when it’s so much easier and more likely for her to watch an episode of Law & Order: SVU “by mistake”. Or on purpose.
July 26th, 2009 - 6:41 am
“This is their first time doing this, but she’s able to touch him just right, and show him how to touch her?”
I have read several of the Alice books, and always found them didactic in parts. This is another example. I’m sure Naylor wrote this to give an example of a girl knowing what she wants, sexually, asking for and getting that from her boyfriend. Not a bad thing for girls to read about.
“…middle school girls are going to read it . . . And I really, really don’t want them to.”
Why? What do you think will happen if they read Intensely Alice? Yes, they will. Some of them will be students at my school who check it out from their school library.
July 26th, 2009 - 7:27 am
In my perfect world, 10 and 11 year old girls are reading THE PENDERWICKS. They’re not reading books with clearly described orgasms. They’re just not! Do I think this kind of thing is causing the incidences of oral sex in middle school bathrooms that seem to spring into the news every year? No. But I still want kids reading books about kids their own age for as long as humanly possible.
I read FOREVER when I was 13 or 14, and I think that’s just fine. Do I want my daughter reading it when she’s 10? I do not. And I don’t want her reading INTENSELY ALICE, either. If it were to happen, then it would happen, and we would talk about it and I’m sure it would be fine. But if I get to choose, then I choose for her to be two years older.
Why does it need to be okay for ten year olds to read about older boys ejaculating? Why does it need to be okay for eleven year olds to read about girls knowing what they want sexually?
July 26th, 2009 - 10:17 am
I also meant to say that I as a parent intend to be the one trying to keep my daughter from stuff that she isn’t ready for, and that I do not intend schools and libraries to be solely responsible for what she reads. I also plan to let her read mostly whatever she wants, within reason, and don’t plan on locking away the books we have here in the house that she might not be ready for. I plan on doing what I can, within reason.
TV ads won’t be an issue because we have a DVR and don’t plan on making surfing a thing; she won’t have a TV or computer in her room. Movie previews are harder to avoid, but that’s a bridge we’ll cross when we come to it. She is, after all, not even 3!
July 28th, 2009 - 8:54 am
Going back to my original question, though: You said, “In my perfect world, 10 and 11 year old girls are reading THE PENDERWICKS. They’re not reading books with clearly described orgasms.” What do you think will happen if they read these books?
I’m honestly curious as to your answer.
Also, while schools and grade levels vary, the middle school where I work is grades 6-8 and I believe all the children are ages 11 and up. 10-year-olds are in fifth grade, which here is elementary school.
July 31st, 2009 - 4:00 pm
Hi, I found this by Googling “intensely alice naylor patrick”; I’m a longtime Alice fan (at least twelve years) but I haven’t read the last few books and, as Alice gets older, I’m always a little scared about what’s going to happen to her in each new book. So I thought I’d look it up online instead of reading the newer ones and getting emotionally involved, just in case she ended up losing her virginity to a creep or something. (My biggest fear for her…)
Reading the excerpt, I don’t think it sounds like she was necessarily touching Patrick “just right”; I think it sounds like she barely started touching him before he had an orgasm, in typical teenage boy fashion. When it comes to showing him how to touch her, I think it was implied several books back that she masturbates, so that doesn’t strike me as too unrealistic. (It was the book when she asked Carol what an orgasm was and Carol said something about “like when you touch yourself” and Alice seemed to know what she was talking about.)
I don’t think it’s unrealistic for Alice to use the word “ejaculated” either. Remember when she went around calling sex “sexual intercourse” all the time before Lester made her stop?
Alice and Patrick are doing this on a BENCH?! I don’t know, maybe Alice’s dad was right about the risks of kissing on the porch swing…
I’m hoping that Alice either doesn’t have sex until she’s married or else, if she has sex before she’s married, marries whoever she first has sex with. The thought of her losing her virginity to a guy she doesn’t stay with just depresses me; I read about her middle-school sex wonderings and friend problems back when I was in middle school, so I’ve kind of got a long-term emotional investment in what happens to her.
I’m kind of sick of Patrick, though. I never got what was supposed to be so great about him. He’s just never seemed FUN enough for Alic, if that makes any sense.
August 3rd, 2009 - 1:14 pm
I’m a freshman in high school, and I’ve been reading the Alice series since sixth grade. It is true that as Alice grows up, she starts getting more active. But thats not exactly a bad thing. Look at this through a teen’s eyes.
We all know what sex is, we all know that people HAVE sex. Its not like she went from having her first kiss to in Patricks pants. She slowly progressed like a normal teenager would do. Having your child not read about Alice won’t stop anything. You will still hear about it in the hallways. Your friends will tell you about there “first times.” Getting information about intercourse from rumors is not the way to go. Reading it is way more informative and realistic.
LONG LIVE ALICE!
September 21st, 2009 - 2:58 pm
I love the Alice series (I’m 23 and have been following the series since the 4th grade) and I was shocked when I read that chapter. I read it again just to be sure I didn’t somehow make it up. Middle school kids know about sex and while I was shocked my Naylor’s graphic references, I think it is important to note that she made the night an incredibly special experience for Alice and Patrick without them having sex (which is what Alice originally wanted to do).