Your Questions Answered

How Should I Handle This?

i love all your books and feel very strange now that i realized that i have finally caught up with Alice, being a junior in high school.  I had a few questions, personal stories and thoughts to share with you and i really hope that you read them : )

The first one that i wanted to talk to you about is how much your books seem to really relate to my life.  I am currently dating someone who i have dated ever since freshman year.  He’s genuinely the love of my life, although we had our rough times and broke up once or twice briefly.  Going back and reading the Alice books again, i see him and Alice in me and Sam (which is also ironic because Alice dated Sam.) I am pretty much a happy girl, although recently i went through a change that really set me back a little bit.

My parents had been having problems that i have known about since like 2 and a half years ago, when my sister was 5.  Maybe that’s why they never told her.  But anyway, my dad finally just moved out last friday.  The reason that he suddenly moved out was because of the fact that i found out that he was dating this b****, who has never been nice to me.  However, the other part that i don’t really like about her is the fact that SHE IS MY FRIENDS MOTHER!! so then my friend and i had this huge fight and what-not and when i told my dad angrily that he had to choose Christina (the woman) or me, he actually chose Christina, which hurt soooo much.  My first question for you is how should i handle this situation?

My next question i have for you is why you would sell your books to that movie company that made the worst rendition of your book that i could have ever imagined.  I know this may seem harsh, but from the moment when i was in 9th grade that i heard they were even considering doing a movie, i was like, no way.  I am against books being turned into movies usually, because i feel like it’s good to let the readers think about what the characters are on their own.  When books are turned into movies i feel as though the reader’s imagination is stole away.  Not to mention the fact that it also gives an easy excuse for not actually reading the book and just watching the movie.  Anyway, for like 2 years, i put off and put off and put off watching the movie, just because i was scared (you can laugh now 😉 ).  i was afraid that it would kinda ruin your books for me. Finally, on one day THIS year, i was searching through the channels on On Demand, and i looked in like the premium channels or whatever and i saw “Alice in-between”… and me, being INCREDIBLY brave to do something that most people could do WITHOUT hesitating, got up the courage to click it and watch it…and i had every reason to be scared.  Don’t get me wrong, i won’t go as far to say that the movie RUINED the books for me, but it definitely did not exactly fully express everything that YOU, as a very talented writer, had worked so hard to express.  I feel like you were totally cheated.  The casting choices were unbelievably off.  Phyllis, you could have TOTALLY at least found a company that would take this to a whole new level and take the time to work to get it on the big screen.  Or at least sold it to some company that would make it into a brilliant independent move.  Allyson Stoner?  Like…really? I mean, if you were going to sell it to them, couldn’t you  have said that you were going to have some input on the decisions?  I can’t say for sure for everyone else, but i can definitely speak for myself when i say that i was really disappointed.  The only casting choice i agreed with was Penny Marshall, just because i mean…come on, she’s a legend.  But lucas grabeal was wayyyyy off.  And the looks of everyone were like the farthest from what was in the books.  i’m not racist AT ALL but in your books you state that Elizabeth is italian, and then this movie comes along and she’s african american.  And patrick looks like he could be 9 years old.  And don’t even get me started on pamela. 

As much as i don’t want to sound like i am being critical, i definitely just want you to hear this because i don’t really know how much you care about it.  I actually don’t think that the movie in and of itself sucked.  Actually, i think it was okay.  But not for alice.  at all.  that’s the part that was so disturbing to me.  It wasn’t like alice at all.  Maybe that’s why it didn’t really ruin the books for me.  Maybe it was a good thing.  I don’t really know.  All i know is you must have had SOME Say in what that movie was going to be like, because of all of the legal things.  And i feel like you owe it to not only your readers but to yourself…and alice…to at least give that opportunity to someone who will fully depict what alice is all about.

Thank you so much for your wonderful books and for hearing me out…i look forward to hearing back from you!  you’re amazing!!!

Phyllis replied:

I think you’re giving movies way too much power to influence you.  If you loved a book, then see a movie about it that you don’t like, why should that affect your feelings for a book?  Do you do the same with people?  Like someone, and then, after a friend describes that person in an unflattering way, dislike him?  You also need to know a little more about how the movie business works.  Few authors get much say in how a movie will be cast or played.  Just ask Gary Paulson or Jerry Spinelli.  My agent makes the contacts, and because the same men who made the Shiloh movies made the Alice movie, I trusted them to do what they felt was best.  I would have made it differently, and I had a chance to change some of the script, and did.  But my job is to write the very best books that I can, not to make the best movies that I can. 

Regarding your father, it was a mistake to ask him to choose between Christina and you.  Sad as it is when parents divorce, no one really knows what goes on inside a marriage except the two people in it, and though it is natural that you would be angry/sad/disappointed in your father, you were way out of line in asking him to choose between his daughter and a woman he’s dating.  I’m wondering if there could possibly be a pattern here, and you tend to either/or/ reactions:  either a movie company makes a brilliant movie that completely agrees with your personal view of the characters or there should be no movie at all;  Either your father chooses you or Christiana.  It’s as though you’re letting a “bad” movie, in your view, almost destroy your love of favorite books; you’re letting a “bad” choice, in your view, by your father, almost destroy the father/daughter relationship.  The world isn’t so black and white, and things are going to happen you don’t care for.  But an “all or nothing” attitude is going to make things pretty rough for you down the road.  If I were in your shoes, I would apologize to my dad.  I would tell him that his actions/choice disappoint you and make you sad and angry, but he is still your dad, and maybe somewhere down the line you two can have a real conversation.  But stick to the way his actions make you feel; don’t attack him.  Some day the shoe may be on the other foot, and you choose to be with someone he doesn’t feel is right for you.  You wouldn’t want him to disown you because of the choices you make.

Is It Alright?

Question: 

I was just wondering if it is alrigh to read the alice books marked 14 and older i ahve read thme already i am just windering if it is alright? and how are you doing? Your books are  great books. I ahve read then all a few times. I lvoe them. Thanks for writing so many aweosme books

Phyllis replied:

Well, you haven’t turned into a toad or anything, so nothing bad is going to happen, right?  It’s certainly OK with me.  Publishers of children’s and teen’s books are asked to put an approximate age level on the inside jacket cover so that librarians who buy books for their libraries and parents who buy books for their children can get some idea of whether the book is appropriate for their students or children.  But as everyone knows, some readers are far more immature than most, and some are far more sophisticated.  Please enjoy the books and stop worrying.

Which Books were Those?

Only Two Left to Read!

Question:

Hi Happy February!!Guess what omg I have only two books of the Alice series left to read: Intensely Alice and Alice in Blunderland!I put them on hold.Guess what I’ll be twelve on the eighteenth!15 days!! 
 
Phyllis replied:

Happy birthday!

Can’t Find an Alice Book

Question:

Hello . I am a big Alice fan! I cant find the Dangerously Alice or Intensely Alice books anywhere (library or my local book store) . Is there any way you could send me an online version i could read or some spoilers ? I am excited to find out what happens between Alice and Tony and Alice and Patrick.

Phyllis replied:

There are three ways to get a book you can’t find in your public library or local bookstore:  1).  Order it from amazon.com  2). Call your local bookstore and ask them to special order it for you.  You will need to pay for it in advance.  3)  Ask your librarian to get the book for you on “inter-library loan.”  Any good librarian should be willing to do this–it may take a while to get it, because many libraries have the Alice books on reserve–but it will come eventually because she requests it from many libraries.

Enjoy the Series Every Bit as Much Now

Question:

Believe it or not, my name is also Alice, and the first Alice book was published the year I was born.  In junior high school, I started reading the series because of the shared name, but it was the stories and the characters that got me hooked.  Even though my own personality was vastly different from Alice’s (I was a very studious kid, much more shy and reserved than her), I could still always relate to her trials and joys of growing up.  I admit that life got in the way, as it unfortunately often does, and I only read the first 11 or so books as a teenager.  But for some reason this year, ten years later, I started thinking about the books again, and read each and every one that’s been published!  Even though I am now 24 years old, married, and have grown up much faster than the Alice in the books, I still enjoy the series every bit as much as I did back then.  My memories from the Alice series have stuck with me all through my teen years and beyond, and have affected me in a way that I will probably never fully comprehend.  Thank you so very much for writing a series that is so near and dear to my heart.  If we are lucky enough to be blessed with a child, I will most definitely be sharing the Alice series with her.    

Phyllis replied:

It’s so wonderful to know that you can pick up right where you left off and still feel a kindred soul to Alice.   The very last book, coming out in 2013 will take Alice from age 18 to 60, and I hope that rings true to you also.  Thanks so much for writing!

Struggling with my Faith

Question:

The main thing I wanted to say about Intensely Alice has to do with one of the main themes of the book: religion. My family are hardcore Christian … not to the point of being like Carrie’s mom in “Carrie” … but it’s enough to drive me crazy since I have always struggled with my faith. At the time I read Intensely Alice, however, I was giving being a Christian another go and was also reading “What I Dislike Most About Christianity.” I had been struggling with the question of “why evil” just like Alice. I wanted to recommend that book to those that read your blog, because it attempts to answer that question. The book helped me realize that we shouldn’t just ask why God allows evil, but why WE do. That really made me go, “Whoa.” I would still like to know, however, how that if God knows everything about our lives and what’s going to happen before we do why he even allowed Hitler to be born and, consequently, all those people to be killed. I realize we cannot know good without knowing bad or evil… but I do not see any good that came out of the Holocaust. I mostly just see senseless violence & racism that GOD KNEW WAS GOING TO HAPPEN IN THE FIRST PLACE! And it’s not even about free will, since He knows what’s going to happen. I’d get into that more, but this is already a long message. So once I had that question mostly answered, I thought I’d be okay. But I stopped going to church again because I STILL feel like a fraud, and no matter how hard I try I can never feel God or anything. On a spiritual level, the only thing I connect with is music. I wish that could be enough for my family. I’m not scared to die, and I don’t care what happens afterwards. I wish we could be more concerned about living here and NOW instead of being so concerned with eternity. I can’t even GRASP the concept of eternity… so it’s hard for me to care whether I’ll go to heaven or hell. 

Phyllis replied:

I understand your doubts and feel the same on many issues.  The question of good and evil is one that has troubled people of many faiths for centuries.  If God is love, one argues, and is all-powerful, how can he possibly not intervene when a deranged mother locks three young girls in a freezer, or a baby-sitter, sick of a child’s crying, throws boiling water on him?  If his eye is on the sparrow, why not the innocent women and children in Africa being slaughtered by warring tribes?   The point is that no one, ever, is going to be able to prove scientifically all of the things that religions claim to be true, and we can go on forever killing each other as infidels or sinners or heretics or we can admit that no one has all the answers,  no one has the one true faith, no one is God’s favorite, and…at the same time…we can be awed by the mystery of life, of all the things we don’t know.  Just because we can’t explain something doesn’t mean we have to fill in the gaps and make something up.  I don’t believe in “believing” in something out of fear, nor do I believe that a person cannot be a wonderful, contributing person without a religious faith.   Religion has done wonderful things–I’m not against organized religion.  But religion is also responsible for many of the evils of this world.   For myself, I do believe that each person should strive to make the world, in some small way, a better place, and though I’m not Methodist, I like John Wesley’s Code of Conduct:  “Do all the good you can, by all the Means you Can, In all the Ways you can, In all the Places you can, At all the Times you can, To all the People you can, As Long as Ever you can.”   People of any faith can live by that.

Alice Upside Down

Phyllis replied:

It isn’t racist to feel that an actor or actress was not right for the part, and I did not feel that Elizabeth should have been portrayed as an African-American either.  There is such a history to Liz, and her dark hair and pale skin is so much a part of her, that it’s hard to get your mind around someone completely different.  I agree, however, that if the producers had only one movie in mind, and the audience had not known the Alice books, then it would matter little.  But to base the first production on a cast of characters you can’t continue with poses real problems, and there is that wonderful character of Gwen just waiting to be played by an African-American.  ( I believe it was Pamela’s dad, not her mom, who was racist).  Still, glitches aside, I enjoyed the movie too.  I thought Alyson Stoner was great as Alice, I loved the guy who played Lester, even though he was considerably younger than the real Lester, and I cried a couple of times when Alice was talking with her Dad.

I Hate Waiting So Long

Phyllis replied:

The book I’m working on now is “Incredibly Alice.”  The reason an Alice book sometimes comes out in June instead of May is that I get it in too late, or my editor is overworked and it doesn’t go to the copyeditor or printer when it should.  Keeping up with this blog takes about an hour a day–many of the emails are answered personally rather than appearing on this page–and I have other writing projects, other deadlines, and just the business part of writing takes an enormous amount of time–contracts, bios, fact checking, research, letters from teachers, questions from librarians, mail from mothers–not to mention all my family stuff.

Alice in Charge