What To Do About Alice? By Barbara Kerley

The next book I have up for review can best be described as a lovely surprise. Barbara Kerley's biography What To Do About Alice? is a colorful peek into the life of Alice Roosevelt. Published in full, vibrant color and in a slightly-larger-than-usual size, this book lends itself naturally to be read aloud. I thought I was in store for a watered-down retelling of Alice Roosevelt's life aimed at younger children. Instead, I was surprised to find a smart, sophisticated book that is both lighthearted and informative - and appropriate for a variety of ages.

Like any good picture book, the illustrations say just as much as the text does. Each of Edwin Fotheringham's illustrations fills the page, with the text squeezed in wherever there is a patch of solid color to serve as background. Historically accurate and cartoon-like without becoming caricatures, “Fotheringham’s digital illustrations perfectly evoke the retro styles of an earlier age, depicting a confident Alice sailing through life and tackling every challenge with delight and aplomb” (Kirkus Review 2008). The bright colors and swirling lines give a feeling of movement to every page, further emphasizing the whirlwind of a woman that was Alice Roosevelt. There are several moments when the illustrations highlight a tongue-in-cheek phrase in the text, such as the illustration of Alice delightedly "sledding" down the White House stairs on trays with her siblings while the text remarks that Alice “watched her younger brothers and sister so her stepmother could get some rest.”

Kerley is careful to ensure that her work is historically accurate. At the end of the book she includes a thorough author's note as well as a list of works cited. While there are very few direct conversations, all dialogue is achieved through quotes from Alice and Teddy Roosevelt, and the sources for these quotes are cited at the end of the book. Kerley also includes a word of thanks to Carol Felsenthal for fact-checking the text and illustrations (Felsenthal is the author of the biography Princess Alice: The Life and Times of Alice Roosevelt Longworth, so she would be well-versed in the life and times of Alice Roosevelt).

As I began reading Kerley's biography, I was struck by her choices in style: she combines playful variations in text size and font to give emphasis when needed, sometimes letting the words cascade down the page in a stairstep shape, a convention one may expect in a whimsical children's book. However, she also uses a fairly advanced vocabulary, interjecting words such as “gamboled,” “voraciously,” and “gallivanting” that one may not expect in a whimsical children's book. Such word choices will challenge younger listeners during read aloud and at the same time make the story less “babyish” to older or less proficient readers who are hesitant to pick up a picture book. Kerley's judicious use of advanced vocabulary is doled out in careful proportions – there are just the right amount of “big words” thrown in to expand a student's vocabulary without running the risk of being too difficult to read or too pedantic.

Where Barbara Kerley's expertise really shines is in selecting which anecdotes about Alice to include in her biography. Kerley chooses lively, funny, and memorable antics from Alice Roosevelt's life to share with her audience, and these stories enchant the reader. School Library Monthly contributor Gary Zingher agrees that “[c]hildren will be tickled to meet such a buoyant personality as Alice and should respond to the book’s breezy, tongue-in-cheek style” (Zingher 2011). As a Sibert Honor Book, Boston Globe-Horn Book Honor Book, Irma Black Award Honor Book, ALA Notable Book, and recipient of the Parents Choice Award, What To Do About Alice? has proven time and time again to delight and entrance young readers.

These glimpses into Alice's fierce independence and free spirit provide wonderful opportunities to bring the book to life in the library or classroom. For example, students could sample the crusty French bread and hot tea that Alice enjoyed in the story, learn to dance the turkey trot, as Alice was wont to do, or design and build their own town cars like the one Alice zipped around Washington in (much to her father's chagrin). This biography would also be a great book to showcase along with biographies about other women who weren't afraid to be themselves and stand up for women's rights, such as Bonnie Christensen's The Daring Nellie Bly, Linda Arms White's I Could Do That! Esther Morris Gets Women the Vote, and Emily Arnold McCully's Marvelous Mattie: How Margaret E. Knight Became an Inventor (Cooper 2008). For even more ideas, the author includes her own curriculum connections on her website at http://www.barbarakerley.com/Site/For_Teachers.html.

If you are on the hunt for a fun, rollicking story that appeals to a wide range of ages, What to do About Alice might be the book for you. I give it two paws up!

Wags and Woofs,

Charlie Brown

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References:

Cooper, Ilene. 2008. “What to Do about Alice?” Book Links 17, no. 4: 7.

Kerley, Barbara. What To Do About Alice? How Alice Roosevelt Broke the Rules, Charmed the World, and Drove her Father Teddy Crazy! Ill. By Edwin Fotheringham. New York: Scholastic Press. ISBN: 978-0-439-92231-9

Kirkus Review. 2008. “What To Do About Alice? How Alice Roosevelt Broke the Rules, Charmed the World, and Drove her Father Teddy Crazy!” Kirkus Review. Posted May 20, 2010. https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/barbara-kerley/what-to-do-about-alice/.

Zingher, Gary. 2011. “Bubbling with humor: A picture book biography about Alice Roosevelt.” School Library Monthly 28, no. 2: 44-45.