Your Questions Answered

A Car Accident

Question:

Hi, I just have a quick question about Intensely Alice. Well, I guess it’s more about you really, and past experiences. I was wondering if when you were a teenager, if you had a friend killed in a car accident. My best friend was killed by a drunk driver a little over a year ago and so I guess reading the part about mark was hard at the time. I’ve just reread the book and the way you described her pain and feelings -along with Pamela’s- was a lot similar to the way i was feeling, I guess it just made me wonder if you’ve been through that before. If you haven’t well then I’ve gotta give it to you. You did an excellent job of portraying it through everyone. Your series is great and I can’t wait to read Alice In Charge! Thank you for taking the time to read this =]  

Phyllis replied:

 

I’m so sorry about your friend.  It must have been truly horrible to have heard the news about that.  No, I’ve not known someone personally who was killed in a car accident, but I had a close friend who was almost killed in a similar accident as the one portrayed in “Intensely Alice.”  And imagining what that would have been like prompted me to use it in this book.

Alice in Charge

Question:

I just finished reading Alice in Charge 5 minutes ago. I can’t believe I finally got to read it. I first found the Alice books last January. As soon as I read Alice in Blunderland I had to read Lovingly Alice and etc! The Alice books are my favorite books of ALL TIME!!!!! I recommend them to all my friends. Well, back to Alice in Charge. For some weirdo reason I thought it was coming out in May. So I kept on expecting it! Anyway it finally came out and I rushed to the bookstore to discover they didn’t have the book. Well, today after my mom picked me up from summer camp she handed me the book and I haven’t put it down since. I’m just emailing you to say I LOVE YOUR ALICE BOOKS. I know this this isn’t possible but I wish you’d NEVER stop writing them. 
 

Phyllis replied:

What a nice surprise for you and what a wonderful mom!   Give her a hug from me.

 

Thank You

Every year, right after I finish your latest Alice book, I say to myself, “This is going to be the occasion where I finally write the author and say how much I love these books!” Up until now, I have failed. In any event–I have just finished “Alice in Charge”, and am cursing myself for being such a quick reader, as I now have to wait another year for “Incredibly Alice”. Still, I don’t think I could allow myself to read the books any more slowly.

I suppose what I want to say most is thank you, wholeheartedly, for these books. I am 28 years old now, and have been reading the series ever since “Alice in April” was published in 1993–when I was Alice’s exact age in the books!  As a preteen and teenager I loved and related to the books’ mixture of warm humor and poignancy; as an adult I’ve felt that I’ve been revisiting myself as I read. I revel in the fact that these are the only books that consistently make me cry, even if I’m rereading them for the third time.  I wish Alice could have been my friend when I was a teenager; I would love to have a student like her in one of my classes now.

My life has changed a lot since I first began reading these books. I went through middle and high school, then college. My parents divorced. I’ve gone from being a student to a teacher. I’ve experienced crushing heartbreak and also amazing happiness and love. As I continue becoming who I’m becoming, Alice is there to provide a small but vital tie to the girl I once was.  I’m especially glad I finished this book tonight. This is my last night alone in the apartment I’ve lived in basically since college–I’m moving to a new city to live with my fiancé, about a month and a half before our wedding. A new, strange, adult, wonderful part of my life is going to begin. I’m glad I got to spend this last night of this part of my life with my old friend. I can’t wait to see what happens to her next!

My gratitude and best wishes

Phyllis replied:

 

Your letter almost made me cry.  I’m so glad that Alice has been with you all these years, and that you’ve still kept the connection alive.  Makes it all worthwhile.  My very best wishes for the new chapter that is beginning in your life.

Is My Dad Cheating on my Mom?

Phyllis replied:

 

I think you are waaaaaaaay ahead of yourself.  I get emails all the time from people on Facebook wanting to add my name to their list of friends simply because they are friends of a friend of a friend of somebody I know.  From what you told me it doesn’t sound as though your Dad knows this person and there’s no other correspondence between them.  If your dad is letting you use his email to apply for volunteer work, it’s not likely he’s also carrying on a romance on this email address.  In ANY case, if this disturbs you, the person to talk to is your dad, not your mom.  Tell him what you found, how you found it, and let him explain.

A Flaw in the Alice Books

Question:

Hey Mrs. Reynolds-Naylor, or should I say, whaddup Phyl, crazyalicegirl224 here! just found a flaw in the alice books and thought i’d point it out– they end!!!!

Phyllis replied:

Good joke!  But here’s news!   As long-time readers know, my publisher assigned someone the job of putting all the facts about Alice and her friends in a document we call “The Alice Bible.”  Only my editors and I have copies, but I keep one at hand each time I write a new book to look up information and make sure I’ve got the right birthdate or the right last name, etc. etc. and the copy-editor uses it when she proofs the next book.  It even has every gift Alice has received, every girl Les has dated, the whole history of Ben and Sylvia’s romance.  Readers who know about this bible have pleaded with me to have it published so they can buy it.  I asked my editor about it the other day, and she said they’d do even better:  after the very last Alice book is published in 2013, they will put the Alice Bible online so that everyone who is interested can read the whole 100 pages for free.  The first few pages of the bible list all the mistakes I have made so far, and there are lots!  In fact, I believe Alice has three different birth dates over the years.  But PLEASE do not start asking questions about the bible.  You’ll all be able to read it when it comes online.

I’d Like to Believe It

Question:

i can’t wait to read in alice in charge in a week so- i need to special order it in canada, because the alice books don’t seemed to be carried a lot here… what a shame!
 
anyways, high school for me had just ended last friday, because we have two weeks of exams. couple days before the last day of classes, we got our yearbooks.. i must say, i’m quite proud of it, having worked on it for almost the entire year. one of the fun parts is of course, getting classmates and friends to sign and write comments. i was passing my book to some of my friends, and someone, lets call them k. he signed my book, and i didn’t look at what he wrote until later that day. the comment was written in large writing, and it was something like: (my name), i love you. so much you don’t even know (signed k).
 
so my question is, how can you tell if someone is being serious or not (not even in this case?). the thing is, some of my classmates and i have this joke about the group of friends “loving me”. everyone (themselves included) know it’s all for fun, no matter how annoying they can get. so when they took up an entire page on my book, i knew it was all for fun. but in the situation with k…? i admit, i’d like to believe it. i’m really not sure at all if k was being serious or not. people say all the time, to trust your instincts. most of the time, i do trust mine… but problem is, if you WANT something to happen, you will force youself to think that way, and shut out everything else…. does this make any sense?
 
i suppose i can just be thinking too hard- i remember almost alice– and alice said something about overanalyzing a good thing to death, and sometimes to take a situation for face value. what do you think? thanks, and i really appreciate you reading this 🙂

Phyllis replied:

 

Whether he was writing partly as a joke, I think there’s some real affection there, and he wanted to give you a nice cozy feeling about him to carry with you after high school.  How MUCH he loves you would be evident if he follows up on this and wants to get together over the summer.  But this reinforces my belief in the value of being true to your inner selves and not trying to act like everyone else, because there are always people attracted to you who are watching, perhaps trying to get up their nerve to get to know you better.

Just Finished the Book

 

Question:

 I just finished reading Alice in Charge–it took me three hours and two bowls of ice cream.  I liked it!–the book, I mean.  (You don’t have to respond to this email, by the way.  Just wanted to say I enjoyed your latest Alice book.)

Phyllis replied:

Fast  reader!  Glad you liked it.

How Do I Overcome This Phobia?

Question:

I am very excited today to purchase the new Alice book! While I am waiting for the bookstore to open, I am writing for a bit of advice. I am fully aware that you do not profess a career as a psychologist, but your insight is always sound and legitimate. When I was younger, I went through an obsessive compulsive period (feeling a need to touch objects a certain number of times, etc.) but eventually outgrew most of these characteristics. Although I was able to surmount this disorder, I now possess a phobia to sickness. Any time someone around me is sick, I become very selfish and defensive because I do not want to catch whatever ailment a person may possess. For example, my sister (who gets sick very often) is sick right now with a fever and cough, and I am constantly trying to avoid contact with her in fear of catching her sickness. I know that no one truly enjoys being sick, but I feel that I am taking it to the extreme and severing an otherwise healthy relationship with anyone who is sick. I feel terrible, because I try to be a loving and caring member of society, but my phobia to sickness has served as a real impediment in bringing out this side of my consciousness. In a large part, I attribute my elevated phobia to last year, when I was terribly sick with the flu and missed my last week of senior year. I suppose I simply do not want to miss out on all the joys that life has to offer, and I feel obliged to attend every day of school, work, etc. I could very well speak with a psychologist about this, but I wanted to know if you had any ideas in overcoming this awful phobia. I will be writing to you soon to relay my reaction to the newest Alice book!!!

Phyllis replied:

I’m glad that you recognize I’m not a psychologist, because I can only answer as an enlightened grandmother.  I can well understand because I went through a period of being obsessive compulsive when I was young.  (I had to touch everything twice because my touch was a little person, and if I didn’t leave two little people, one would get lonely!!!)  And I also understand being distressed that you were sick and missed the last week of senior year.  That must have really been hard to take.  A few sessions with a psychologist would help, but I can offer at least two bits of insight:  first, you need to make peace with the fact that this will happen, rather than trying forever to avoid it.  It doesn’t take being sick to make you miss out on something big.  You may have to postpone your wedding because your future partner was in a car accident.  When you’re a parent, you may have to cancel your vacation because your child broke a leg.  You may be in charge of a large event and not be able to attend because an elderly parent needs help.  As they say, life is what happens when you’re planning something else.   Think of plays that have been canceled on Broadway because an actress was ill.  Think of a President being sick at a state dinner.  It happens to the best of us, and when you face this head on and accept that when it happens, you’ll deal with it, but not before, you won’t worry so much about it.  Second, if you add up all the worry and special effort you go to trying to avoid someone who’s sick, worrying about catching the sickness, and feeling guilty about it, think of the hours of the day you’re already ruining.   You don’t even have to get sick;  you’re ruining things now!   Chances are, with or without additional help, you will eventually grow out of this as most of us do.  Life has a way of teaching us things whether we want to learn or not.

You Have No Idea How Much I Loved This Book

Why Pamela?

Question:

   I’m one of your many fans of the Alice books, and I was just wondering, why did you decide to make Pamela have a miscarriage in one of the latest books? Would it have taken too many books to describe the whole process of her raising a child, and would that have taken the attention away from Alice?
    Also, do you think you would ever write an “Alice” book from one of the other character’s points of view? By the way, I absolutely LOVE the Alice books. I know you get that all the time but I truly mean it and I’m sure everyone else does too! Thank you so much for writing them. I haven’t found any books that I love as much as the Alice ones.
    Also, what’s your favorite book series? Sorry for all the questions!

Phyllis replied:

Well, yes, since I’m winding up the series, I could not have shown too much of Pamela raising a child as a single parent.  But also, she wasn’t in very good health.  There was a lot going on in her life, she wasn’t eating for sleeping properly, was underweight, and therefore was a good candidate for a miscarriage at her age.  But I think I also wanted to show the anxiety that goes along when an unplanned pregnancy takes place, the way relationships often fall apart.   I doubt I will write another book from another character’s point of view.  There are too many other books swarming around in my head that I’m anxious to write.  But if you like the Alice books so much, I think you’d also like “Cricket Man,” with a male protagonist.   I’m not much for series books myself, and at the moment can’t think of any I’d call my favorites.