Growing With Alice

Comment:

I didn’t think I would post this comment because I’m sure you get messages like these all the time, but then I thought, why not? 🙂 I read my first Alice book in middle school, and I am now a 22 year old recent college grad. I read the Alice books over and over in middle school and high school, but read less and less in college. I recently decided to re-read the series from the beginning, as I have not read the final book (no spoilers)! Reading the series over has felt like catching up with old friends. Today I finished Alice in the Know, and was reminded it was the first book that ever made me cry (when Grandpa McKinley died). Today, when I came to that part of the book, I cried all over again! The Alice books have touched me in a way that no series ever has. Exploring your website, I loved learning about your life. It struck me to learn how much you loved being read to as a child, which I know from my college courses is so important. As I begin my first job as a middle school teacher this August, this love of reading is a gift I want to pass to my students. Thank you so much for giving me and so many others a friend in Alice!

Phyllis replied:

Thank you so much for your email, and congratulations and best wishes as you start your career as a teacher–middle school, yet!  It was wonderful to know that the Alice books meant so much to you.  I hope you will have time in your busy schedule to read some aloud to your class every day.  I get hundreds and hundreds of letters from students, and universally, when they talk about what they love most at school, it is when the teacher reads aloud to them, often from a continued series, or just a beloved book they haven’t read yet.  I’m sure that my parents reading aloud to us was the inspiration for my becoming a writer.