Your Questions Answered

I Want to Play Pamela!

Question:

I'm a 12 year old girl from germany.
I read all alice books and think they're all fantastic.
I just saw that there's gonna be a movie.
So I would really like to play Pamela Jones in the following movies, that's my
big dream, because Pamela is so cool!
I'm blond, too, but I just colored my hair, because it was too dark 😀
My hair goes over the shoulders.
O my god it would be so great if you would answer me!
It is really my biggest dream to play pamela.
But the stupid thing is : I just started learning English the 3rd year... I hope
that's no problem 🙂
Please write back and tell me if I could play pamela.

Not Even Alice is Perfect At All

Question:

(Sorry that my English isn´t very well, it´s only a foreign language to me.)

I don´t want to write a long story of what I think about Alice McKinley. (Cause I guess, you don´t have a lot of time to read all your fan-mails)

Always when I finish a book, I have the necessity to talk to you about Alice´s life. I read the books since fifth grade. So you see, Alice is with me since a long time. I don´t know why, but I feel totally close to her. I sure read other books too, but in Alice I found a true friend. Always when I read about Alice, I have to think of myself. I`m not very great in Math too and I have so many embarrassing moments. In Alice`s High School years she often seems to me like a grown-up selfish woman. Whereas I still feel sometimes upside down (I´m a sophomore now).

I think Alice is a role model to every girl who ever read your books. No matter if the girls are nine or twenty-five. It´s crazy to see how soo many girls all over the world look up to one person: Alice.I sometimes read that people want to know, how the real Alice looks like, where she lives (street), how tall she is, who her dentist is (maybe), in which school she goes and things like that. I thought of that too. But I came to the decision, it´s not important how long we’re searching for the real Alice McKinley, we would never find her. The strawberry blond girl with green eyes, who´s mom died when she was five. We wouldn´t find the clique from Alice and Pam and Liz and Patrick. Because Alice is in all of us, and Pamela and Elizabeth too. Sometimes we act like Pam or maybe one girl has the same hair color like Elizabeth or somebody can´t carry a tune like Alice. Maybe, somebody feels more like Alice than like Pam. But I think there´s no girl exactly like Alice. I think every girl should be glad to have her own character, because not even Alice is perfect at all.

I know it`s not the most emotional mail you got but I just wanted to say what I think about Alice. (I guess the letter gets a little long though.)But I`m grateful, Mrs. Naylor, you write those books. I love them! They make my days as a teenager much easier.

Phyllis replied:

I wish I knew a foreign language as well as you know English, and I’m so happy to know that Alice means a lot to readers in other countries as well as the U.S.  It’s interesting that no matter where girls live or how old they are, I think we all have moments like Alice, or feel the way that Elizabeth feels, or does something that reminds us of Pamela.  Thank you for taking the time to write to me.

What Do They Look Like?

Phyllis replied:

I try not to do that for readers.  If I gave a detailed description of the way my head pictures a character, perhaps only half-fleshed out in a book, it might be so completely different from yours or from other readers that it would be disconcerting. 

Favorite Part?

Characters Based on Real Life?

How Do You Come Up with Ideas Like These?

Phyllis replied:

I’m not going to tell you in advance what Alice and Patrick will do.   How do I come up with ideas like these?  Real life.

What is the Name of the Poem?

Question:

I am a 21 year old college student who used to read your Alice books ALL the time in middle school. I was sitting in my room one day thinking about the fun I had reading your books and started to think about the poem I read in “Alice In-Between.” I know that she recited the wrong poem in class and it was about her mother, but I can’t remember the name of that poem. I have searched high and low, but I have not found it. Can you help me?

Phyllis replied:

The title of the poem is “Passing By,” and the author is unknown.

Have Only Been Kissed Twice

Question:

Hi PN. I am a big fan of ur books. I have a question for you today. I am 15 and have only had 2 boyfriends. I’ve only been kissed twice, and I never get asked out. I cryall the time because all my friends have boyfriends and im just a loner. the one guyt hat liked me and i liked him lived a few hours away and when i called him he said he didn’t like me and hung up. now im more sepressed then ever.what if i grow up to be 50 and have never even been felt up? Please help! I am dieng. thanks

Phyllis replied:

Arrrggghhhh!   I wish you would quit crying all the time, because that doesn’t make you look attractive; it makes you look desperate.  Do you have any idea how many girls write to me that they are 17 and have never been kissed at all?  And how many of them write to say they found a great boyfriend at college?  If you are worrying about reaching the age of 50 without being felt up, you’re worrying about the wrong things.   It’s not getting “felt up” that’s the big deal–it’s all the love and fun and shared experiences that goes with it.  Please spend your time getting to know yourself–the things that interest you, the things you want to accomplish, the things you do best, and concentrate on making yourself a more interesting human being.   That’s the best thing you can do to make yourself attractive to anyone–male and female alike.

How Can I Get a Boy to Like Me

You Always Know What I’m Thinking