What made me write the Alice books in the first place and why did a series appeal to me? It’s probably true that Alice represents the daughter I never had, though I didn’t start out thinking that way, for I’ve written lots of books about girls. It’s immeasurably easier to raise a child on paper than it is in real life, but it was Alice who determined what would happen next. Once she became a full-fledged person in my head, she directed the way she wanted to go. She never played on a sports team, and I never had either, nor did she sing in a school choir or a madrigal group—and this was something I had loved. Alice never even sang in the shower. Yet this seemed true to the person I had created, and I was determined to let her lead her own life. More than that, I wanted to share the journey with her.
I received many suggestions over the years from my readers. Give her a dog, a sister, a car, diabetes . . . Make her play soccer, smoke pot, go to Paris, sleep with Patrick . . . Making Alice do something that didn’t fit was like trying to cram on a shoe that was the wrong size. It just didn’t work. But your letters and e-mails describing your own problems and your own lives helped more than you’ll ever know.
If you see yourselves in Alice and her friends, rest easy. The things that happen in these books are partly me, partly you, partly things friends have told me or newspaper stories and articles, all mixed up with imaginings.
Some of you were intrigued almost as much by the book jackets as by the stories, and were often confused by the different covers for each new edition. A few of you asked for the names and addresses of some of the models (sorry!) and a lot of you pleaded to see Patrick or Lester on a book jacket. Quite a number of you asked if there was a movie about Alice (Yes! Alice Upside Down) and offered to play the role of Alice or one of her friends in future films.
When my husband was alive, he read each Alice manuscript before I turned it in. Both he and my agent, Bill Reiss, were especially fond of Lester, and chuckled over the conversations between him and Alice. But keeping track of what went on in each book when it came time to write the next one was my biggest headache, not only for me but for the editor and copy editor. In the early books, I believe, Alice’s birthday falls on three different dates; Elizabeth has her ears pierced in one book but not in the next.
Finally the copy editor, Cindy Nixon, took on the tedious job of creating an Alice “bible,” rereading each of the Alice books and recording every friend’s temperament, hair color, likes and dislikes; every holiday, every gift, every vacation, every kiss . . . Each of the twenty-eight books is summarized, and the copy editor even included all the discrepancies from book to book. These hundred or so pages were collected and revised every few years, and now, as a special gift to my readers, the publisher has made this collection of facts available for free, online. Just go to the Alice website, www.alicemckinley.com, and click on “Just the Facts” in the heading at the top of the screen. You can find every possible thing you ever wanted to know about Alice from each of the twenty-eight books.
But some of you have asked if I would ever tell you how long Alice lives and, if she dies, how it happens. The rest of her story is up to you. She and Patrick are taking lessons in Japanese, preparing for Patrick’s short-term consultant job in the Far East. You can be sure she won’t want to stay away from her grandchildren long, and will need to check in on Lester’s triplets too. And, of course, she is writing some books about her life. . . .
I want to thank the many girls and guys and the moms and dads who wrote to me about the series. I’m grateful to the librarians and teachers who stood up for me when the Alice books were challenged in their schools, sometimes even risking their jobs. My sons, Jeff and Mike, unknowingly helped, because their experiences in growing up are often there in the background. And I’ve e-mailed my granddaughters, Sophia and Tressa, numerous times with questions about high school and college. But special thanks goes to Caitlyn Dlouhy and her staff, who not only kept me focused, but up-to-date. Caitlyn offered some terrific suggestions along the way that made this a fuller, richer series.
I’m also grateful for the troop of noisy, chattering characters who travel with me inside my head. As long as they are poking, prodding, demanding a place in a book, I have new things to do, new stories to tell.
Phyllis Reynolds Naylor admits that there is more of herself in Alice than in any other character of the Alice series. Yet she can see herself in Pamela, too, and now and then Elizabeth. Sylvia Summers was created out of a beautiful speech teacher she had in college, and Lester? One hundred percent from her imagination.
Phyllis 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.” She has written serious novels (The Keeper); coming-of-age novels (Cricket Man); fantasy (Sang Spell); adventure (The Fear Place); suspense (Blizzard’s Wake); a sociopolitical novel (Walker’s Crossing); as well as the gothic horror novel Jade Green. In 1992 her novel Shiloh won the Newbery Medal.
Married to the late Rex V. Naylor, who was the first person to read her manuscripts, she lives in Gaithersburg, Maryland. She is the mother of two grown sons, and the grandmother of Sophia, Tressa, Garrett, and Beckett Naylor. Visit Phyllis online at alicemckinley.com.
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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
Including Alice
Alice on Her Way
Alice in the Know
Dangerously Alice
Almost Alice
Intensely Alice
Alice in Charge
Incredibly Alice
Alice on Board
Now I’ll Tell You Everything
Alice Collections
I Like Him, He Likes Her
It’s Not Like I Planned It This Way
Please Don’t Be True
You and Me and the Space In Between
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
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 Herself
The Witch’s Eye
Witch Weed
The Witch Returns
Picture Books
King of the Playground
&n
bsp; 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
Night Cry
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
The Dark of the Tunnel
The Year of the Gopher
Send No Blessings
Ice
Sang Spell
Jade Green
Blizzard’s Wake
Cricket Man
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ATHENEUM BOOKS FOR YOUNG READERS
An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division
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www.SimonandSchuster.com
This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2013 by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
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The text for this book is set in Berkeley Oldstyle Book.
First Edition
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Naylor, Phyllis Reynolds.
Now I’ll tell you everything / Phyllis Reynolds Naylor. — 1st ed.
p. cm.
Summary: As Alice McKinley begins a new phase as a student at the University of Maryland, College Park, she experiences many changes, both expected and surprising, that lead her into a future her seventh-grade self could only have imagined.
ISBN 978-1-4424-4590-1 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-1-4424-6161-1 (eBook)
[1. Coming of age—Fiction. 2. Universities and colleges—Fiction.
3. University of Maryland at College Park—Fiction. 4. Friendship—Fiction.
5. Family life—Maryland—Fiction. 6. Maryland—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.N24Alw 2013
[Fic]—dc23 2012040626
Jacket photographs copyright © 2013 by Jill Wachter
Now I'll Tell You Everything (Alice) Page 40
