Kickin' it Old School

Now that classes have definitely been ceased for a few weeks now, I'm realizing that my lack of regular blogging outside of Pottertastic Tuesday was not because I had no time, but merely a lack of motivation. To ensure that my blog contains something other than various tidbits relating to Harry Potter, I have decided to incorporate a second weekly item into the blog-orino. That's right folks, the Throwback Review will be broadcast from this dinky blogspot every Sunday evening to remind you of the wonderful books of days past. There are only two qualifications a book must meet in order to find itself featured in this lovely little section:

1. It must be written for children or young adults.
2. It needs to be at least ten years old, preferably more.
3. I must check it out from a library, because what's the point of telling you about it otherwise?

So without further ado, I give you the very first Throwback Sunday Review

Alice In-Between
by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor

What makes the Alice books interesting, as far as "throwbacks" go, is Pyllis Reynolds Naylor continues contributing to Alice's trials and tribulations. Even though this book was originally published fourteen years ago, the perils faced are still very relevant to young readers. In fact, the only aspect of it that could potentially be dated is that Naylor does not once refer to Alice McKinley as a "tween." And while these days labels are a lot friendlier to those in-between kids, the stress of not-quite needing a bra at all times is no less annoying and confusing.

Beginning with Miss Alice's birthday, the narrative follows Alice and company through some hard lessons for young girls just coming into their "raving beauty." All around her, Alice finds out first hand what girls must do for one another in order to protect themselves against men of the grabby-handed variety. Naylor is able to subtley educate her young readers as to the right and wrong ways to handle these tricky situations while remaining true to the narrative and not sounding as if she is trying to hard. Put simply, this is a wonderful way for girls aged eleven through fourteen to find out not only how to compose themselves if they are stuck in one of these traps, but also illuminates the dangers of dressing too old for one's age.