Alice's new health class teacher in 8th grade has a unique assignment for his class. He assigns students, some as individuals and some as pairs, an adult life situation to figure out. They have to research all the options and report on what they decide to do. Alice is paired with Patrick and assigned to get married, plan their wedding, honeymoon, first month's rent and furniture on a budget of $5000. Pamela is assigned a teenage pregnancy, and Elizabeth has to buy a car.
Meanwhile, Mr McKinley's relationship with Miss Summers is in a debatable status and Lester is (yes still) having trouble deciding between Marilyn and Crystal.
For the book's brief foray into deeper more serious situations, (spoiler alert) one student reports the new health teacher as having sexually harassed her and he is suspended. Fortunately for him, Alice was present during the supposed harassment and comes to the teacher's defense. As with the harsher, more serious elements of previous books, this takes up very little page-space, but it hangs with the reader afterwards.
Another nice entry in the Alice series. ( )

I think this is my favorite of the series thus far. Alice and the gang have to complete a school assignment that forces them to face grown up decisions. This assignment helps them each to grow and realize that you can't always plan for life, sometimes it just happens. ( )

I loved this book. It really helped me as I was growing up because the main character and I were about the same age. This SERIES (and yes theres more) is the best thing you can give your daughter. It touches on puberty, boyfriends, school, parents, friends, and the choices that us teenagers make and of course our mistakes.

Alice in Lace is a very interesting book. It talks about Alice, and her friends going through a difficult project called "Critical Choices" where the teacher, assigns everyone a scenario like becoming pregnant or getting married. They had to find a solution that would suit them the best by interviewing others, researching what could be done and be in their shoes. But, I think the age for the characters aren't relevant. The main character Alice, and all her friends are in grade 8. Alice has a steady boyfreind for three years, which means they had been dating since grade 5. Who dates in grade 5? Hardly anyone dates in grade 8, let alone grade 5. Also, the scenarios are a little mature for 8th graders. Alice and her boyfriend Patrick are getting married, and have only $5000 to spend on furniture, a wedding reception, honeymoon and first months rent. For her friend Pamela, she is pregnant and decides if she wants keep the baby, abort it or give it up for adoption. I think that things like this shouldn't be happening to 8th graders. This sounds like high schoolers or collage students, not middle schoolers. In eighth grade, we only care about our next history test and when we can go shopping with our best friends. If I could change one thing from this book, it would be the ages of the characters. Overall, the plot is really interesting and it is nothing like what I read before. ( )

i LOVED the alice books growing up! i definitely recommend them to all girls around 9-10 and up, and the good news is that she's still writing them! so the series starts out when alice is in elementary school and now she's in high school! ( )