Alice on Board

April 15, 2012
Alice and her friends take summer jobs aboard a cruise ship on the Chesapeake Bay following graduation. Thrilled with the nearly two-to-one ratio of guys to girls that makes up for the low pay and drudgery of galley duty, Alice makes the most of her summer before college. She's torn between missing Patrick, who's in Barcelona, and enjoying flirtatious outings with Mitch, a 20-ish crew member who's taking the summer off from trapping muskrats in the Maryland marshes. Dramatic episodes large and small fill the weeks on the refurbished Seascape. A passenger accuses Alice of stealing her watch; another gets his kicks exposing himself when she comes to clean his room. A bee sting lands Liz in the hospital; Gwen breaks up with Austin and has her own shipboard romance. Pamela's needy, troubled mother arrives during the same week that her father and his girlfriend are on board. A rather old-fashioned plot with a tone of comfortable familiarity mixes with a smattering of innuendo and scatological humor. Alice observes it all from her place on the verge of adulthood, pondering what the future holds for her as she looks back over her life so far. Readers who have been along with Alice on her journey from the start will enjoy this latest installment in a reliable series as it begins to wind down. (Fiction. 13-15)

COPYRIGHT(2012) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

July 1, 2012

Gr 8 Up-Naylor takes readers through another adventure in Alice's life in which she will encounter fun, disappointment, challenges, and emotional confusion-all part of growing up. It is the summer after high school graduation and Alice, Pamela, Gwen, and Elizabeth take jobs on a cruise ship as their last hurrah before they scatter for college. Through the girls and their male crewmates, Naylor shows what is required to serve on the ship. It is hard work and fraught with surprises: Alice is accused of theft, confronted by a passenger who exposes himself, copes with Pamela's mom when she shows up to ruin the cruise for Pamela's dad and stepmother, and faces the difficulties when the generator quits and the ship is without power for several days. Patrick is leaving for Spain and Alice is feeling terrible for not making time to call and say goodbye. It is Mitch, her new friend and fellow crewmate, who points out that Patrick could have called her, too. Certainly this title is more meaningful for those who have followed Alice through the years. As a stand-alone, it provides a breezy picture of life on a cruise ship with many entertaining but one-dimensional characters making their way through another period of growing up. Avid Alice fans will want this next-to-last installment.-Joanne K. Cecere, Monroe-Woodbury High School, Central Valley, NY

Copyright 2012 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.