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    A Girl Called Al
    A Girl Called Al
    A Girl Called Al
    Ebook99 pages1 hour

    A Girl Called Al

    By Constance C. Greene

    3.5/5

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    About this ebook

    Her name is Al, not Alexandra!

    Al’s real name is Alexandra, but she hates it. She has always considered herself a nonconformist—she is the only girl in the entire school who wears pigtails, and when all the other girls take the cooking and sewing class, Al wants to take shop. There’s just one problem: Girls aren’t allowed.

    Al is determined only to learn useful things, like making bookshelves. With the help of her new best friend, a seventh grader who lives down the hall from her, and their building’s kind superintendent, Mr. Richards, she just might get her wish.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOpen Road Media
    Release dateFeb 24, 2015
    ISBN9781504004404
    A Girl Called Al
    Author

    Constance C. Greene

    Constance C. Greene was the author of over twenty highly successful children’s and young adult novels, including the ALA Notable Book A Girl Called Al, Al(exandra) the Great, Getting Nowhere, and Beat the Turtle Drum, which is an ALA Notable Book, an IRA-CBC Children’s Choice, and the basis for the Emmy Award–winning after-school special Very Good Friends.

    Read more from Constance C. Greene

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    Reviews for A Girl Called Al

    3.5/5

    18 ratings4 reviews

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    • 3/5
      Re-reading this book for the first time in almost two decades, I have to believe this was probably one of the first books I read with a truly feminist message. Al's word for it is "nonconformist", but it really boils down to "I refuse to look a certain way just because society says that's what's 'pretty'" and "I buy my own sweaters!" in the manner of Destiny's Child singing about buying their own diamond rings. "The shoes on my feet / I bought 'em!" In short, Al rocks pretty hard as a role model, but she also deals very realistic doubts and fears. She wrestles with loneliness from eating alone while her divorced mom dates around, with questions about why her dad sends cards and money but never visits, and why girls aren't allowed to take shop. (Hopefully that last part would seem pretty dated to millennials, though.) Most interestingly, though, Al is seen only through the eyes of a narrator, a classmate whose name we never learn, a point of view that underscores the importance of Al's persona: she's affecting the people around her as she declares her nonconformity.
    • 4/5
      An oldie from my past, but I found the original hardcover at the university library, the yellow cover with the Byron Barton illustrations that I recall from my youth. I found the mix of traditional manners (inviting the neighbors to tea on good stationery) and contemporary mores (divorced working mom raising a precocious daughter) quaint by today's standards. Al still is an interesting bird, though, with her intellectual talk and logical ways.
    • 3/5
      An enlightening story of some non conforming girls, now I want to read another one about Al.
    • 3/5
      I loved this book when I was younger; I thought it was really unique compared to most of the preteen novels out there. There is no fighting for popularity, the focus is not on getting boys to like you. When Al moves into her building, the main character (who is never named) at first thinks Al is too chubby to be friends with - but body image isn't the focus of the book, either. Al's weight is hardly mentioned, and she and the main character become best friends who spend a lot of time with the elderly superintendent of their building. I was pleased that this book was just as unique when I re-read it as an adult, as I had remembered from childhood.

    Book preview

    A Girl Called Al - Constance C. Greene

    Chapter One

    There’s a new girl moved down the hall from us. She said Call me Al and it wasn’t until I saw her report card that I found out her name was Alexandra. She hates it.

    She has lived in a lot of different places. She has lived on the Coast, among other places. In L.A.

    I have never heard of Ellay, I said. Where is that?

    Al explained to me that L.A. is short for Los Angeles. In California. They have a lot of smog there.

    She has been on an airplane a lot of times. She said the next time she goes on one she will bring me one of the little plastic dishes of jelly and stuff they give you.

    I have never been on an airplane.

    She has been to Hollywood where she saw them making a movie. It’s not so much, she said

    She has Doris Day’s autograph.

    And that dopey guy who always plays with her. He’s such a dope he makes me sick. What does she see in a dope like that? Al said.

    She has been to Disneyland about a thousand times.

    It’s not so much, she said.

    Al is a little on the fat side, which is why I didn’t like her right at first. That’s not fair, I know. She might not like me because I’m on the skinny side. To each his own, my father says. But it wasn’t just because of that. She walks stiff, like a German soldier, and she has pigtails. She is the only girl in the whole entire school, practically, with pigtails. They would make her stand out even if nothing else did. Most of the kids have long, straight hair like mine. My father says I remind him of a sheep dog but I don’t care. Al’s pigtails look like they are starched. She does not smile a lot and she wears glasses. Her teeth are very nice, though, and she does not wear braces. Most kids I know have to wear braces. They are very expensive and also a pain in the neck. I am fortunate, my father says, because I have inherited my teeth from his side of the family. It saves him a pile of dough, he says. My brother inherited his teeth from my mother’s side, I guess. He has a retainer and all that stuff.

    Al is a very interesting person. She is a year older than me but we’re both in the seventh grade, on account of she dropped back when she moved here. She has gone to a lot of different schools. She has a very high I.Q., she says, but she doesn’t work to capacity. She says things like this all the time but I don’t like to let on I don’t always know what she is talking about.

    I am a nonconformist, she said, like she was saying she was a television star or Elizabeth Taylor or something.

    What’s that mean? Here I go again.

    It means I don’t follow the herd. It’s the best way to be. You, she said, looking over the top of her glasses at me, have the makings of a nonconformist. There’s a lot of work to be done, but I think maybe we can manage.

    Most of the things Al and I talk about I don’t tell my mother. She probably wouldn’t get them. The first night Al moved into the building, her mother came to our door. She had a mess of green stuff on her eyelids, and her fingernails looked about two inches long.

    She said, I wonder if you’d be good enough to let me use your telephone. Mine has not as yet been installed. I will reimburse you, of course.

    She’s not my mother’s cup of tea, whatever that means. My mother says she likes most people, but I’ve noticed that when you come right down to it there are a lot of people she doesn’t like.

    She’s very critical, my mother.

    Al’s mother works. She’s got a very important job in a department store downtown. When she comes home at night her feet hurt and she takes a tub. That’s what she says. She doesn’t take a bath, she takes a tub. When I was there the first time, she came in, and after Al introduced us she said she had to run and take a tub. I guess I looked funny because Al said, She means a bath.

    What’s the difference? I asked.

    A tub has all kinds of gunk in it, Al said. Like bath salts and bath oil and things like that.

    My mother takes mostly baths.

    Al says she doesn’t love her mother that much. I never heard anyone say they didn’t love their mother before. She likes her because she’s her mother, she says. She respects her, but she doesn’t love her that much. She loves her father. He sends her salt-water taffy from Atlantic City when he is at a convention, or a couple of jumping beans from Mexico when he is at another convention.

    Al’s mother and father are divorced. She says she doesn’t mind too much that they are divorced. She gets more presents that way. She has a picture of her father over her bureau. She says he is very handsome and smart.

    My father is not very tall and he is going bald. Every year at my birthday he pretends he can’t remember how old I am. He always takes off a year or two. Practically the only time he gets mad at me is when I bring home D’s on my report card.

    You can do better, he says.

    I wonder what my I.Q. is and if I am working up to my capacity.

    Chapter Two

    Our home-room teacher, Mr. Keogh, is the only teacher in the whole school who calls Al Al. All the others call her Alexandra and she turns about eight colors of the rainbow. I said it to myself under my breath and it sounded pretty. But you know how kids are about their own names. Even if they really like them, they pretend they don’t.

    Al doesn’t want to take cooking and sewing. She wants to take shop. But in our school only boys get to take shop, and when Al told Mr. Keogh about this he said he would talk to the principal but not to hold out too much hope.

    Al and Mr. Keogh are friends. She talks to him before class. She found out Mr. Keogh’s wife was having an operation.

    It’s so sad, she said. "I feel so sorry for Mr.

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