Just wanna say thank you

I’m 26, from Germany. I just finished your last Alice book and found out that there´s a website where I can find more information about Alice and even will be able to contact you. So here I am sitting in front of my computer and thinking about the right words to write.

First of all, I want to thank you so much for creating this character. The Alice series is a part of my life since I was around 12 years old. I found the first 17 books in our public library and still remember devouring them. I even remember reading one of the books in only one long long afternoon. I just couldn’t stop reading and laughing about all the embarrassing things that happened to her.

When my sister, ten years younger than me, entered her teens I introduced her to your books, and she began loving them too. A few years ago, our public library replaced a lot of old books (including all Alice books) with new ones. Gladly my sister was at the library that week. She saved them from going into the trash and brought all of them home. 😊 Since then, we treasure them at our parent´s house and I still sometimes go into my sister´s room on some rainy Sundays, pick one of the books and start reading them again.

Around three years ago I found out that the series didn´t end after the 17th book. I was shocked and happily surprised. All those years we thought Alice adventures just ended in her 9th grade. But the rest of the books just weren´t translated into the German language anymore. (What a pity by the way.) But gladly my sister and I are both not too bad in English, so I decided to buy all of the 11 missing books and give them to her as Christmas and birthday gifts in the following years.

There are so many wonderful life lessons you can learn from Alice. When I tell my friends about the books, I always tell them there are all kinds of social issues included into the story. It´s so funny and educational and I just think it´s so important especially for teenagers to read about all those topics like racism, sexuality and all those insecurities we all face whilst growing up.

Now we both finished the last book and here ends our journey together. At least for now. We both already agreed that if we are ever blessed with daughters, we will pass the books on to them.

Thank you again for all the wonderful, exciting and cheerful hours my sister and I had while reading your books.

I smiled a lot while reading your letter, and was delighted to learn that your sister rescued the Alice books.  Some libraries have the policy of tossing out all books older than a certain number of years, regardless.   It was a delight for me to read that you and your sister enjoyed many of the books together.  I’m sure I must have been thinking of my beautiful older sister, Norma, when I wrote about some of Lester’s girlfriends.   She was three years older than I, so we each had our own set of friends, but I was always grateful that she taught me how to put on makeup and to how to play the piano by ear.   That gave me hours and hours of pleasure over the years, playing some of the songs we both loved.  Thank you for taking the time to write to me.