Thank You for Battling Censors

I am also an older reader of Alice (yikes, I am now 24). I started with Alice in oh, about middle school and since then one of my summer traditions has been reading most if not all of your Alice books. I savor your new books. I have enjoyed watching Alice grow up and have marvelled at how real you have kept her. Alice is not a perfect person. (I offer many of her escapades in Dangerously Alice and even Simply Alice as an example). However, she tries to be a good person. She is a good friend. (See Almost Alice).

 

Thank you for battling censors and ‘book banning’ to write a real series. On another note, I think your books (and website) are also good for those from less supportive families and girls with absentee parents as you address many of the issues that they face and give them advice in a non-preachy manner. (See Grooming of Alice.)

 

Thank you for being there for generations of girls present and future. As one of the previous e-mailers on the website said, I hope to encourage my children to read this series. If only to introduce them to reading and get them to realize in embarassing moments that other girls have gone through this and survived it.

 

I truly appreciate your email.  It’s difficult sometimes to convince readers that Alice represents one imaginary girl, not Everygirl.  It’s not only censors who wonder why she isn’t other than she is, but readers who ask why are there never drunken parties and pot?  Why do the girls always seem to have boyfriends?  Why has she never had sex?  Is she a Christian or not?  All I can really answer is that when I get Alice up in the morning on any particular day, I have to ask myself what this particular girl is thinking, what she would most likely be doing, whom she would be spending her time with, and what are her long-range plans?  Sometimes I want to hug her and sometimes I want to shake her, but she just goes right along, being Alice.