Miss Smithers

Dave Jenkinson is a professor in the Faculty of Education at the University of Manitoba and the author of the “Portraits” section of Emergency Librarian.

Set in Smithers, an actual town of some 5,000 people in northern British
Columbia, the very funny Alice trilogy features the diary entries of
Alice MacLeod, who personifies the term adolescent egocentrism. After an
abortive attempt at public school, Alice has been home-schooled for the
last decade by her hippie parents. Alice’s brother, who attends public
school, is five years her junior, but he is actually the most normal,
responsible family member. Having been counselled at Teens in Transition
(Not in Trouble) for four years, the socially inept Alice re-enters
public school at age 15 via the Alternative Solutions School, where she
re-encounters the physically bullying Linda, her Grade 1 nemesis.
Beginning July 14 and ending October 5, the episodic Alice, I Think
introduces readers to a large cast of characters who, in the main, play
continuing roles in the subsequent volumes.

Commencing January 10 of the following year and concluding May 29, Miss
Smithers continues Alice’s story and finds her—over her feminist
mother’s objections—entering the Miss Smithers Pageant as Miss Rod
and Gun Club. Alice, now 16, begins to write and then publish her own
zine. Its pieces, which are made available to the book’s readers,
focus on her fellow pageant contestants plus others around her. Alice
adopts a nom de plume, but the zine accidentally gets released with her
name still attached.

Alice MacLeod, Realist at Last, which spans June 30 to August 21, sees
the teen, who has now decided she is going to become a rich
screenwriter, penning “Of Moose and Men,” a three-act screenplay
containing 17 scenes, each featuring Alice as the incomparable Annette
Marseilles. The scenes’ contents consist of either Alice’s wacky
re-creations of something that has just occurred or her equally bizarre
imaginings of how an impending event will play out. Despite the book’s
ironic title, Alice actually does come closer to achieving some aspects
of a normal teen’s life over the summer, thereby leaving readers with
hope for her as she prepares to enter Grade 12.

Female readers will definitely enjoy Alice’s numerous life adventures
as, motivated by a flow of grandiose ideas, Alice stumbles from one
amusing happening to the next, her eyes always firmly focused on
herself. Although each succeeding volume provides sufficient information
concerning antecedent action that it can be read independently, reading
all three books in order will yield a richer experience, especially
given the trilogy’s many subplots. Highly recommended.