Alice-by-Accident

by Lynne Reid Banks

It's Just so stupid, asking us to write our life for homework. It's not even a weekend! Alice Williamson-Stone doesn't see how she can write her life story as a class assignment. How can she fit 9 1/2 years into a couple of pages? Anyway, what's interesting in her life is not the "family and pets" stuff her teacher asked for. Her pets have died, and the only family she has is her mother. Until recently she had a beloved, interfering grandmother--Gene--but she's gone from Alice's life. Besides, as Alice discovered ages ago, she was born by accident, and that's the sort of private thing you don't write about for school. Alice does the assignment but she thinks it's pretty boring, until in doing it she discovers a need to write about her true life--the exciting, complicated, private parts. In her secret notebook, Alice begins to write her"{ilustrated} ortoblography." Alice writes about her mother's difficult early life and her determination to become a "professional single parent." She writes how Gene, her absent father's mother, came along, and how she changed Alice's life, making it richer in experience but also more complicated. And she records on going quarrels between her mother and grandmother about how to bring Alice up, which ended with the Big Row. Now Alice has just her Number One person, her mum, struggling with problems of money, career, health, where to live, and how to manage on her own--problems Alice can only deal with by writing about them. Except when she tries to help . . Lynne Reid Banks offers a compelling story of a creative child caught in the middle of a difficult, but very real and increasingly common situation. Poignant, funny, and startlingly honest, Alice-by-Accident is certain to touch the heart of any child who has ever felt different, and of any adult who has to deal with the problems of children who come by accident.

Genres: Fiction, Childrens

144 pages, Hardcover

First published May 31, 2000

About the author

Lynne Reid Banks is a British author of books for children and adults. She has written forty books, including the best-selling children's novel The Indian in the Cupboard, which has sold over 10 million copies and been made into a film.
Banks was born in London, the only child of James and Muriel Reid Banks. She was evacuated to Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada during World War II but returned after the war was over. She attended St Teresa's School in Surrey. Prior to becoming a writer Banks was an actress, and also worked as a television journalist in Britain, one of the first women to do so. Her first novel, The L-Shaped Room, was published in 1960.
In 1962 Banks emigrated to Israel, where she taught for eight years on an Israeli kibbutz Yasur. In 1965 she married Chaim Stephenson, with whom she had three sons. Although the family returned to England in 1971 and Banks now lives in Dorset, the influence of her time in Israel can be seen in some of her books which are set partially or mainly on kibbutzim.

Reviews

[Karen GoatKeeper · Rating 3 out of 5]

Alice is the daughter born out of wedlock. She's never met her father. She does know his mother, Gene. Alice's mother works as a solicitor and the little family scrapes by.
Alice is caught in the middle. She lives in a house owned by Gene, but now given to her father, so she has to move. Her mother is angry and breaks off ties with Gene. Alice loves her mother. She loves Gene. She wishes things were the way they had been before.
At the private school Gene pays for, Alice is learning to write stories, something she likes to do.
The book bounces between Alice's school notebook with her stories in it and her special notebook with her stories of her life in it.
The book is easy to read. The format is straight forward. At times the story seems to stagnate, even though it is going forward. Alice's circumstances are interesting. Her reactions and attempts at dealing with them are interesting. The ending gives hope for the future, yet seems uncertain, incomplete. But life is like that.

[Susanne · Rating 2 out of 5]

The characters and family drama in this book are very compelling, as is the narration by young Alice, alternating between her private journal and her writing journal for school. What I did not like about this story is that Alice's mother, who was badly abused as a child, has instilled in her daughter an unhealthy fear of men. Poor Alice worries at one point that a male babysitter (hired by her grandmother, not her mother) is going to molest her or kidnap her. Even though the grandmother character makes it clear that she disapproves of how Alice's mother has brought up Alice to fear men, I think that a young girl reader would carry away from this book a deep impression of Alice describing all her unhealthy fears.

[Melinda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really good book for a young audience; the main character is 9 and a half. The situations she is in are interesting and her insights are useful. Adults will see more nuance in what happens, but the main character's viewpoint is the one we get. She's an earnest girl trying to understand adult relationships that don't always make sense. I liked this book. Lynne Banks writes really well and thoughtfully. It made me think. I want to free this book to help other people gain perspective.

[Cheryl · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fun journal-style read. It was entertaining to try to unravel some of the British slang (on the rob, slagging off, smash)--but rather annoying enduring some of the main character's bad spelling. I wanted to mail her a link to dictionary.com.

[Carol · Rating 3 out of 5]

The French title for this book "J'ai neuf ans et demi et je m'appelle Alice" isn't, unfortunately, included on Goodreads. And interestingly enough, the French version is almost 70 or so pages longer than the English.

I enjoyed this book, and was struck by the author's main point (I think) that adults are so darned complicated, and that adults mess up kids' lives a lot by being so very complicated.

Alice, the 9 year old narrative, really doesn't have much to say about her future. Her mother and grandmothers make lots of important decisions for her, and she has to live with them. I was particularly frustrated by Alice's mother, who seemed to be very good at separating Alice from her father, her grandmothers, and her friend Peony. After Alice's illness this changes somewhat, but the mother really doesn't let loose her reins.

However, the frustrating mother character is more than made up for by clever, creative little Alice, whose spirit is indomitable, and whose writing is "vraiment comique".

[Erin · Rating 3 out of 5]

For some reason, I've remembered bits and pieces of this book since reading it 15 years ago. I couldn't tell you what the plot was about, but my third-grade-self must have enjoyed it in order to have such random details of it - Peony's character, "mum said I was an accident" - stick with me. I was so thrilled to FINALLY remember what on earth this book was called!