Not Even Alice is Perfect At All

Question:

(Sorry that my English isn´t very well, it´s only a foreign language to me.)

I don´t want to write a long story of what I think about Alice McKinley. (Cause I guess, you don´t have a lot of time to read all your fan-mails)

Always when I finish a book, I have the necessity to talk to you about Alice´s life. I read the books since fifth grade. So you see, Alice is with me since a long time. I don´t know why, but I feel totally close to her. I sure read other books too, but in Alice I found a true friend. Always when I read about Alice, I have to think of myself. I`m not very great in Math too and I have so many embarrassing moments. In Alice`s High School years she often seems to me like a grown-up selfish woman. Whereas I still feel sometimes upside down (I´m a sophomore now).

I think Alice is a role model to every girl who ever read your books. No matter if the girls are nine or twenty-five. It´s crazy to see how soo many girls all over the world look up to one person: Alice.I sometimes read that people want to know, how the real Alice looks like, where she lives (street), how tall she is, who her dentist is (maybe), in which school she goes and things like that. I thought of that too. But I came to the decision, it´s not important how long we’re searching for the real Alice McKinley, we would never find her. The strawberry blond girl with green eyes, who´s mom died when she was five. We wouldn´t find the clique from Alice and Pam and Liz and Patrick. Because Alice is in all of us, and Pamela and Elizabeth too. Sometimes we act like Pam or maybe one girl has the same hair color like Elizabeth or somebody can´t carry a tune like Alice. Maybe, somebody feels more like Alice than like Pam. But I think there´s no girl exactly like Alice. I think every girl should be glad to have her own character, because not even Alice is perfect at all.

I know it`s not the most emotional mail you got but I just wanted to say what I think about Alice. (I guess the letter gets a little long though.)But I`m grateful, Mrs. Naylor, you write those books. I love them! They make my days as a teenager much easier.

Phyllis replied:

I wish I knew a foreign language as well as you know English, and I’m so happy to know that Alice means a lot to readers in other countries as well as the U.S.  It’s interesting that no matter where girls live or how old they are, I think we all have moments like Alice, or feel the way that Elizabeth feels, or does something that reminds us of Pamela.  Thank you for taking the time to write to me.