What about pets?

Question:

I just wanted to say thank you very much for writing the Alice series. It’s the dream series any young girl could ask for 🙂 I started reading these in the fifth grade and instantly fell in love!!!
You write the books so realistically that sometimes its hard to imagine the books are fiction! 
I have two questions:
* Why did you want to include pets in the Alice series, such as Oatmeal and Annabelle?

* What inspired you to write a realistic fiction series for girls?

Anyways thanks again for writing the Alice Series! I plan to reread them again in order this time:)! ( last time I just grabbed which ever books were available at the library ! )
I appreciate your dedication to the books:)

Phyllis replied:

I just wanted to write about a motherless girl growing up without a role model, and suddenly it seemed to become a series.  The way the story came to me made it realistic, not over-the-top.  And because pets usually figure in someone’s life, at some point, however brief, it seemed natural to me that Alice would encounter a pet, and the changes this would make in her life.