Relate so well to Alice

Question:

I read the first Alice book when I, like Alice, was 11. I remember being able to relate so well to everything Alice went through as she grew up, and as I grew up too. So many coming-of-age stories seemed cliched to me, and a lot of them never appealed to me because of how distant they felt from my own life. Not Alice. She worried about things I worried about, she went through embarrassing things too! In one book, I don’t remember which, Alice falls down the stairs and pees herself and a hot senior picks her up to help her out. I remembered that whenever something embarrassing happened to me, nothing could ever be as bad as peeing yourself in front of a hot boy! Now I have finally caught up to Alice, I’m a senior in highschool and so is she. The latest book actually made me cry when Alice graduated, because I can’t believe we made it this far together (I guess it took her a little longer than me) I can honestly say my middle school and highschool life would have been A LOT different if not for Alice. 

Phyllis replied:

Yes, in the last book you will find out what happens to the most important characters.  I’m so glad you’ve enjoyed the books.  To show how much things stay the same from one generation to the next, the peeing incident actually happened to my mother around 1918.  She was born into a large farm family that lived far out in the country.  She wanted to be a teacher, and so, to attend high school, her parents had to find a family she could stay with in the city, and she did housework for them to earn her board and room.  After all that, imagine falling down the stairs on her first day of high school and peeing herself!  (With no hot senior around to pick her up!–I tacked that on for Alice.)