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. It's the summer holidays and Alice and friends, Elizabeth and Pamela, are learning the secrets of junior high success - including the absolute must of having a boyfriend. Fortunately Alice has Patrick. But Patrick the boyfriend is alot more complicated than Patrick the friend. Somehow life was simpler when they were just friends and Alice didn't have to worry about the etiquette of kissing or what to buy him for his birthday. A funny, authentic book that deals with the transition from best friend to first boyfriend.