Your Questions Answered

Reading My Sister’s Copy

Question:

I just wanted to let you know that I LOVE the Alice series. I started reading
when
I was in fourth grade; I found a copy of Alice in Charge on my sister’s
bookshelf. I’ve been reading them ever since and I’m now a junior in college! I
just finished reading Intensely Alice. I love these books because, one, Alice is

such a great, realistic character, and, two, I live in Gaithersburg and attend
the
University of Maryland at College Park, so I feel so connected to her. Every
time
my sister and I go to Silver Spring we say, “Hey, this is where Alice lives!”

I’ve been going through a tough time with friends lately at school, reading the
Alice books gives me a really nice escape. They help remind me of how things
used to be when I first started reading them.

Phyllis replied:

Both I and my readers love to hear that people still read the Alice books in college and on into their fifties and sixties.   I’m just delighted that they still work for you.   We’d love to know the correct title of the book you found on your sister’s shelf, however, because “Alice in Charge” is the book coming out next spring.  And I’m going to get 50 emails asking where they can find that book now!   Thanks!

What Do You Use?

Sex Before Marriage

Are the Alice books appropriate for 5th Grade?

Phyllis replied:

Some readers are ready for the Alice books much earlier than others.  You may not understand a few of the things in the books for teenagers, and you won’t have experienced many of the things that Alice does, so in that sense it might be best to wait awhile.  The very last Alice book, Always Alice, coming out in 2013, will tell you everything that happens to Alice after age 18.

What Pamela Gave a Guy

Never Stop Writing the Alice Books

Phyllis replied:

I’m not the Energizer Bunny, you know.  Nothing goes on forever.  But I love knowing that you like the Alice books so much.  The next Alice book, due out this coming June, is “Alice in Charge.”

A Different Character in Translation

Question:

 
I don’t know at what point one grows tired of reading the same fan mail all over again, but I just put down “Alice On Her Way” again for what I suppose must be the fifth or sixth time, and I just wanted to send off a note to say how much I appreciate the novels. I’m 21 now and studying English literature at UCL in London, but I’ve been reading Alice books since I was eight, when the book club I was in began to sell the Swedish translation of “Alice In-Between.” Strangely enough, it was only after having read the next two books they translated and put out – “Alice in Lace” then “Achingly Alice” – that I realized that there must be some books in between (pun not intended, ha!) there that I was missing. Sure enough, but I couldn’t find them in Sweden! I began a couple of them up every time we went to the States – about every second year. I can’t say that the Alice books were the first English chapter novels that I ever finished – that honor, oddly enough, goes to Margaret Mitchell’s “Gone With The Wind” – but I will say that reading the novels in English as opposed to Swedish lent me an extra layer of understanding of the characters and their surroundings. (Now that I’ve read all the three aforementioned translated novels in English as well as Swedish, I can tell you that Alice comes across as a different character entirely in translation! I find that that’s true for many translations, though – as such, you could say that Alice has, in a way, taught me to always try to track down any given book in its original language of writing, which is also how I learned how to speak at least a rudimentary French and Spanish, as Sartre’s “No Exit” and Allende’s “The House of the Spirits” were some of my favorite books from my English A1 course’s World Literature unit. Many thanks for that, Al!) I can also tell you that reading the Alice series definitely expanded my vocabulary – for instant, I can credit Alice for having taught me the word “reluctant!”

This is turning out to be longer than I thought it would, and I don’t want to bore you. I’d just like to give a word of thanks for writing this series – it’s given me a lot, throughout the years, and will continue to do so as I read the final novels of the series, and then reread the series in its entirety again and again. No matter the range of books I read and novels I appreciate, I will always come back to Alice … she’s a part of my childhood as well as my teenage years, and she’s helped me grow and develop. Reading an Alice book feels like coming home, if you’ll forgive the somewhat strained simile. Thank you so much for creating such a wonderful, true-to-life world.

Phyllis replied:

Thank you so much for taking the time to write such a thoughtful and appreciated email.  It was especially interesting to learn that Alice is a far different character in a Swedish translation than she is in English.  There are four more Alice books written since “Alice on her Way,” and a fifth coming out in  June, so you have a lot of happy reading yet to do.  You seem to be well versed in literature of different types, and I’m just happy to know that the Alice books are some of the ones you enjoy.

Thank you for sympathizing

Phyllis replied:

Sometimes I focus on only one part of an email, and your criticism will help me look at the broader picture.

Heartless Woman

Question: 

In regards to how you answerd my last question about being sad ebcause my friend died:

Excited and Sad at the Same Time

Phyllis replied:

Your email interested me in particular because Alice feels exactly the same way you do in the book I’m writing now, “Incredibly Alice,” which will come out next June.  Regarding college she is sad, scared, excited….well, I’ll let you read the story.  I think one reason you’re thinking about this guy is that you’re wishing you had some of those good feelings back right now.  When we’re worried or nervous about something, happy times in the past seem almost perfect.  About all I can tell you is that making the transfer from childhood to adulthood is, in addition to being exciting, a type of mourning.  You are giving up some things–maternal comforting, security and dependence, childish fun–many things that you truly enjoyed. And although you don’t want to go back to being a little child, you do miss the perks that went with it, some of them, anyway.  Be honest with yourself and what you miss, and remember that this is a common and normal feeling among kids facing college.  There are times you want that mother’s hug.  The dad’s encouragement.  The sibling’s teasing.  The hot dinner.  The clean sheets.  Normal, normal, normal, normal, normal.  If you still feel that way often once you get to college, most schools have support groups you can join of kids who are feeling exactly the same way, and it’s a good place to make friends.