Alice Alone

Phyllis Reynolds Naylor's well-loved adolescent everygirl returns as a ninth-grader in Alice Alone. Here Alice unhappily though perhaps not permanently breaks up with her longtime boyfriend, Patrick, and then, as everyone gossips about it, strives to follow her dad and older brother's advice to put up a brave front. Subplots include the reappearance of her father's rival for the hand of his fianc e and the disclosure that one of Alice's friends was molested in childhood. ( May)