Only children…

Hello, I am 15 years old and have been reading the “Alice books” for some time now, love them. I don’t know if you’ll get to me, but we are in quarantine so maybe you will be able to respond. But what I have come to realize and what confuses me is how many only children you put in this particular series. I know barely any only children, only a couple of them at most. Most of my friends have 1-2 siblings, but only children, at least where I live are not common at all. So my question to you is why you seemed to put so many in the series? (keep in mind I have read through the first book of Alice’s senior year, so most of them, but not all). Patrick is an only child and that gets pushed as a plot point in a lot of parts of the books, Pamela is an only child, although her parents got separated in 8th grade, Elizabeth was an only child until a lot later on in I think 8th grade as well, Alice clearly isn’t but Lester is a whole lot older than her, same case with Gwen, not quite the same as being an only child but a lot different than having a sibling with you at home all of the time. Mark was also an only child before his death, which was also discussed frequently. I am not sure, but I have no recollection of Brian, Keeno, Jill, Karen, Justin, Sam, Penny, or Amy (main characters of the “gang” although Sam, Penny and Amy aren’t really members of the “gang”, but I digress) having any siblings either, unless I have forgotten or you just didn’t mention them at all, or often. As well as her cousin Carol being an only child also. I am not trying to hate because I LOVE the Alice series, it has just confused me that almost every character has no siblings at all, and if they do, they have a significant age gap (Alice and Lester, Elizabeth and Nathan, Gwen and her brother, can’t remember his name)

Thanks so much love your books!!!!!

What a fascinating letter!  In all the 28 years those books were being published–each one carefully written by me, read aloud to my critique group before I submitted it, read with suggested revisions by my editor and the copy editor and in the hundreds of emails I have received from fans, no one else has brought that up.  And I hadn’t even realized it until now.  I think the answer is that there are already so many characters in the Alice series, it was hard enough to make sure that each had their own personality and look, much less add brothers and sisters, that would need a reason to be in the story, but I could have mentioned a few of them.  Looking back on it all, however, Mark definitely needed to be an only child.  The plots seemed more real with Pamela and Elizabeth only children too, but beyond that there could have been some siblings in minor roles.  I’m glad you  loved the series in spite of all the “onlys.”