Bush, Penelope Alice In Time.

Bush, Penelope.    Alice In Time.    
 Holiday House     2011  196p  17.95 978-0-8234-2329-3     
jr/sr     Fantasy           G

   
A fluke accident gives Alice a chance to re-live her life as a child, but with the experiences she accumulated as a teenager.  Can Alice use this knowledge to change her own future? Alice hates her school, friends, family, and life.  If it can go wrong, it will.  When it finally appears that something good is going to happen to her (THE cute guy notices and likes her), this is spoiled, as well.  

Running out, into the night, Alice returns to the playground she has visited allher life -- scene of her first friendships, happier childhood, and perfect first

kiss.  Sitting on the merry-go-round, through a fluke of some sort, Alice is

given a second chance.  She is returned to her life seven years ago and given

the opportunity to change her perspective -- and her own choices and actions.  

Although the changes that Alice is able to implement are small ones, when she

returns to the present, the good these small actions accumulate result in major

positive change for her life.  Her mom has a good job, they live in a lovely

home, her relationship with her little brother has been repaired, and Alice is

happy and moderately popular.

Alice’s character is so bitter, whiny, and generally disagreeable and unpleasant,

that some readers may put the book aside before the plot twist occurs that

permits Alice to turn her life (and personality) around.  The plotting is heavy-

handed, and some readers may resist the text’s didactic conclusion.

Welliver, Hilary