Beatrice Sparks 1918–

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Beatrice Sparks 1918–

INTRODUCTION
PRINCIPAL WORKS
TITLE COMMENTARY
FURTHER READING

(Full name Beatrice Mathews Sparks) American editor and author of young adult nonfiction.

The following entry presents an overview of Sparks's career through 2005.

INTRODUCTION

Sparks is best known for her series of cautionary diaries, ostensibly authored by children and edited by Sparks, that vividly detail specific social issues afflicting contemporary teens. Her works address an assortment of single-issue problems like drug abuse, occultism, AIDS, and teen pregnancy, all told through dramatic first-person diary entries. Each text purports to be the factual account of an anonymous teenager's life which acutely demonstrates the need for personal responsibility through highly affecting, albeit sensationalized, perspectives. However, the true authorship of the diaries are suspect; while Sparks maintains that all of her works are based on existing diaries, she admits to editing the texts heavily and adding new material based upon her personal experience with troubled youths as a social counselor and speaker. Nevertheless, several critics have questioned both Sparks's true contributions to the texts and whether or not the diaries are works of fiction or nonfiction. Sparks's most famous work, Go Ask Alice (1971), was originally published anonymously and became one of the most popular young adult works of the 1970s, indoctrinating a generation of teens to a melodramatic world of casual drug use, violence, and the eventual death of its sympathetic protagonist/author.

BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

Sparks was born on January 15, 1918, in Goldberg, Idaho, the daughter of Leonard Clarence and Vivian Mathews. A devout Mormon, she married La Vorn G. Sparks, an investor, with whom she has three children and several grandchildren. Her expertise in juvenile behavior comes from her personal experience working with troubled children beginning in 1955. After attending the University of California at Los Angeles and later Brigham Young University, she eventually earned a Ph.D., though her education credentials were questioned by Alleen Pace Nilsen in a 1979 School Library Journal article. She first began working with at-risk teenagers in Southern California drug clinics. After moving to Provo, Utah, she began providing musical therapy for patients at the Utah State Mental Hospital and taught continuing education at Brigham Young. Based on these experiences, she toured the United States lecturing about the potential pitfalls of modern adolescence at various conferences and schools. After one of these appearances in California, Sparks claims she was approached by a counselor who asked her to speak to a young woman who was particularly troubled. Sparks struck up a friendship with the girl and her family, which eventually enabled Sparks to become a confidante of the teen as she struggled with her recovery from prior drug problems. On one such visit, Sparks alleges that "Alice"—the pseudonym assigned by Sparks to ostensibly protect the teen's identity—secretly provided her with several diaries written during her descent into drug addiction. Sparks has called the event almost prescient, as within months Alice would pass away under questionable circumstances that were not, Sparks has insisted, the result of ongoing drug usage. Regardless, Sparks felt moved by the girl's emotional diaries and decided to promote their contents as a warning to other teens. After editing the material into a final draft of which Sparks admits contains elements not present in Alice's original work, a mutual acquaintance of columnist Art Linkletter recommended that she pass along her completed manuscript to the famed writer, noting his probable sympathy to its contents having recently lost a daughter to drug use himself. He, in turn, sent it to his agent who sold the manuscript to publisher Prentice Hall. Deciding that releasing the book as a nameless diary would lend it a more approachable feel for teens, Sparks and Prentice Hall published Go Ask Alice as the work of an anonymous girl. It went on to become one of the most notorious and well-read books of the 1970s, selling over four million copies and becoming a fixture in school libraries nationwide. Within a few years, Sparks began associating herself in a limited capacity with her famed work, eventually attracting the attention of a woman whose son had recently committed suicide and had, like Alice, left behind a diary documenting his troubles. Her resulting work based upon the boy's diary, titled Jay's Journal (1979)—Sparks's first work that credits her as the "editor" of the text—relates a sensational tale of a young man's infatuation with the occult before a tragic and untimely death. The accuracy of Jay's Journal was repudiated by the boy's family, who claimed Sparks distorted the original diary—with less than ten percent of her version having been derived from the boy's journal—and had completely fabricated his supposed flirtation with the occult. Sparks maintained that her book only used the diary as source material with the rest having been derived from letters and interviews with the boy's friends. She has continued to release diaries similarly born from the records of other troubled children, though the factuality and authorship of these works have also proven controversial.

MAJOR WORKS

All of Sparks's supposed works of young adult nonfiction to date have utilized the diary format, with the exception of 1978's Voices, which relied on interviews to relate the troubling stories of four separate adolescents from around the country. In addition to the drug use depicted in Go Ask Alice, Sparks's subsequent diaries have documented various other contemporary adolescent social ills, among them, teen pregnancy, sex, teacher molestation, anorexia, and foster care. Many of her works descend into worst-case scenarios, as with It Happened to Nancy (1994), in which the titular fourteen-year-old diarist records her first meeting with a handsome college-aged man named Collin, who proceeds to rape her and infect her with AIDS. Already inflicted with severe asthma, Nancy quickly sickens. In her diary, she details both her painful struggle with the disease and her attempts in helping the police locate her assailant, all the while emotionally venting about her lost future. Like several other of Sparks's diarists, Nancy pointedly notes her personal connection to Sparks—which for Nancy is through an Aunt Thelma, with whom she comes to stay in the final weeks before her untimely death. The similarly sympathetic fifteen-year-old protagonist of Sparks's most famous work, Go Ask Alice, is never specifically named. Instead, she is given the pseudonym "Alice," which is a reference to a Jefferson Starship song about drug use titled "White Rabbit." As with all of Sparks's diaries, the primary protagonist is initially depicted as a normal, likable, middle-class girl with typical concerns about boys and school. However, after she comes into contact with LSD at an illicit party, she quickly spirals into an unfamiliar and dangerous universe that threatens to consume her and ultimately results in drastic personality changes. The book sensationally documents the horrors Alice faces—among her more dramatic trials include her troubles with a dealer boyfriend who has her sell drugs to young children, casual sex with strangers for drugs, and her eventual committal to a psychiatric hospital. Just as Alice begins to regain her footing through sobriety, the entries abruptly end with a footnote from Sparks that notes the girl's death from an overdose three weeks after the last entry, an ending that Sparks has admitted alters the true story of the original author. Her other works feature repeating patterns of personality change, miraculous recoveries, and relapses into bad behavior. While several of her protagonists are rewarded with happy endings, such hopeful fates come only after long periods of struggle, ill-conceived dependencies, and isolation. Sparks's adoption of the diary format emphasizes the tragedy and horror of these events to the reader through the establishment of an intimacy that such first-person accounts offer. The books are clearly meant to function as cautionary tales and, to that end, Sparks's texts often contain information about helpful resources, including hotlines and organizations that can provide assistance in times of crisis.

CRITICAL RECEPTION

Sparks has remained a controversial figure in young adult literature primarily due to questions surrounding the validity and authorship of her works. Her critics have highlighted the fact that the United States copyrights for Sparks's diaries remain solely in Sparks's name for all but two works, Almost Lost: The True Story of an Anonymous Teenager's Life on the Streets (1996) and Kim: Empty Inside: The Diary of an Anonymous Teenager (2002), which in turn lends itself to further accusations about the authenticity of the events in Sparks's diaries. Additionally, at Snopes.com, a website devoted to debunking rumors, the entry for Go Ask Alice has noted that the copyright page of Sparks's best-known work implicitly states that, "This book is a work of fiction." As such, critical opinions of Sparks's works have been split between those who believe in her claims of teen authorship and those who regard her books as works of fiction. The reception to Annie's Baby: The Diary of Anonymous, a Pregnant Teenager (1998), for example, epitomizes this divide. The journal Adoles-cence has hailed the story of teen pregnancy, calling it an "eloquent and moving" story that "provides a message from one teen to others about important issues regarding self-identity, honesty, responsibility, and happiness." In contrast, Lauren Adams of Horn Book has argued that the "blatant fictionalizing [of books like Annie's Baby] assures that they will not be accepted as the sensational, true document that Alice was, while their heavy-handed proselytizing prevents them from being remotely successful as works of literature." Sparks's detractors have also alleged that her diaries utilize a level of literary sophistication and didacticism unlikely to have come from a teenager. Marlyn Roberts has argued that Kim: Empty Inside could "only be accepted as a real teenager's diary by someone who has neither been nor met one." Regardless, while Sparks's authorship claims continue to be debated, some have made the case that the diaries still hold value as thoughtful, well-intentioned cautionary tales for young readers. For instance, while Frances Bradburn has expressed concern over whether It Happened to Nancy was "really a teen's diary" or simply "Sparks' attempt to convey the reality of adolescent susceptibility to HIV/AIDS in a format that will impact YA readers," she has asserted that, "[i]n spite of its flaws, Nancy's diary should be on our shelves."

PRINCIPAL WORKS

Go Ask Alice [published anonymously] (young adult nonfiction) 1971

Voices: The Stories of Four Troubled Teenagers as Told in Personal Interviews to Beatrice Sparks [editor] (young adult nonfiction) 1978

Jay's Journal [editor] (young adult nonfiction) 1979

It Happened to Nancy [editor] (young adult nonfiction) 1994

Almost Lost: The True Story of an Anonymous Teenager's Life on the Streets [editor] (young adult nonfiction) 1996

Annie's Baby: The Diary of Anonymous, a Pregnant Teenager [editor] (young adult nonfiction) 1998

Treacherous Love: The Diary of an Anonymous Teenager [editor] (young adult nonfiction) 2000

Kim: Empty Inside: The Diary of an Anonymous Teenager [editor] (young adult nonfiction) 2002

Finding Katie: The Diary of Anonymous, a Teenager in Foster Care [editor] (young adult nonfiction) 2005

TITLE COMMENTARY

GO ASK ALICE (1971)

Alleen Pace Nilsen (essay date October 1979)

SOURCE: Nilsen, Alleen Pace. "The House That Alice Built." School Library Journal 26, no. 2 (October 1979): 109-12.

[In the following essay, Nilsen offers a critical reading of the publishing history and inspirations behind Go Ask Alice, offering several interview excerpts with Sparks as well.]

Any List of the 10 most popular young adult books of the 1970s would have to include Go Ask Alice, the anonymous diary of a young drug addict who dies of an overdose. In numbers of copies sold, the book might well lead the list. Practically every high school and community library has one or more of the Prentice-Hall hardback copies, and, according to a local bookstore, the Avon paperback edition is now in its 43rd printing. The book has been translated into 16 languages, and every year since 1973 millions of viewers have seen its television adaptation.

During the years between 1971 (when it was first published) and 1978, the anonymity of the book lent it a certain air of mystery. But in 1978, a new book, Voices, was published by Times Books. Boldly printed on its cover is the legend: "From Beatrice Sparks, the author who brought you Go Ask Alice. " The book which is apparently aimed at adults is a rather melodramatic compilation of four interviews or case histories of teenagers in trouble. In 1979, Times Books published a second book by Sparks. It is entitled Jay's Journal and was written from the notes given to Sparks by the mother of a boy who was deeply involved in witchcraft and as a result committed suicide. It, too, is advertised as being edited by "the author who brought you Go Ask Alice. "

Ever since my graduate school days at the University of Iowa where I worked in individualized reading classes and saw Go Ask Alice blossom and spread like summer squash through the high schools. I have been intrigued with the phenomenon of an anonymous best seller which was more or less exempt from the regular kind of literary criticism since it was supposedly the diary of a deceased young girl. Now that an author was stepping forth to claim the book, I became further intrigued. When I discovered on the back flap of Voices that Beatrice Sparks lived in Provo, Utah, I set out to arrange an interview. The first number I called was answered by a child who asked, "Do you want Bea or my mother?"

"I want the Mrs. Sparks who writes books."

"Oh, that's Bea, my grandma," he said and gave me another number. When I got through to her she was gracious about allowing me to come for an early Saturday morning interview.

I arrived in Provo, Friday night and made a scouting trip to locate Sparks' home so that I wouldn't be late on Saturday morning. It was about an hour drive through new construction sites, side roads, and deadends. Perhaps because it took so long to find the house or because it looked so grandiose and strangely out of place, that as soon as I saw it I was struck with the thought, "Why, it's the house that Alice built!" The moon made its white pillars and the statue on the front lawn glow in the dark and an inside chandelier lit up the stained glass window on the second floor. The tall wrought iron fence and the circular driveway made it seem as though it should be on a Georgia plantation, not nestled between the Provo river which gurgles through the side yard, and the towering Wasatch Mountains which make the sun come up an hour late.

The next morning, I found that the inside of the house was as interesting as the outside. Just as Go Ask Alice is a rather jarring blend of sensuous details and upright preaching, Sparks' house is a unique blend of lovely old antiques and modern cheapness. Except for the buff-colored French poodle with its matching rug (they get shampooed together), the entry way including the long, winding stairway and the several rooms that are off from it are all red and white. The white marble floor of the foyer and the white painted bannister make the deep carpets and the velvet wallpaper seem all the more red. The empty spaces are filled in with the kind of gold, marbled mirrors that people buy in squares at K-Mart and glue up themselves.

The best example of startling incongruity is the central room of the house which is dominated by a grand old roll-top desk and a glass enclosed book cupboard that once belonged to Brigham Young. On the top shelves are a family Bible, a McGuffey reader and a few other old books, but on the three shelves below, facing out, are copies of Beatrice Sparks' books including several versions of Go Ask Alice —each written in a different language and each having its own cover design.

But so much for the house that Alice built and on to the questions that I took to the interview and the answers that I brought away.

1. What are Sparks' Qualifications for Working with Troubled Teenagers?

On the dust jacket of Voices, it appears that Sparks is a professional youth counselor or social worker. But during the interview, I was given no evidence of formal training or professional affiliation. Sparks became interested in the problems of young people and drugs in the late 1960s when she and her husband moved from Southern California to Utah. The specific reason for the move was that they wanted to be near the family of their married son who thought Provo would be a better place than California to raise his children.

When they arrived in Provo, Sparks was appalled to find out how little the general public knew about the problems of young people and drugs. Because there were no counseling programs and no alternatives, parents were having 16- and 17-year-olds who experimented with drugs committed to the state mental hospital. Then a few months later, when the kids were released, they suffered a double whammy. They not only had to cope with having drug records, but also the stigma of having been "up the hill." Sparks had once held a job in a drug abuse clinic in California (she was vague about the specifics) and knew that there were many stages between drug experimentation and the necessity for commitment to a mental institution. She began to speak out on the needs for counseling and communication between young people and adults. It is in this role as a speaker that she has come in contact with troubled teen-agers.

2. Was There a Real Alice?

Yes, there was a real Alice. Sparks met her in the middle of the night at a youth convention where Sparks had been a featured speaker. She says that in her speeches she always offers to talk personally with anyone who has a problem and wants a listening ear—Sparks also confided that she cries a little in each speech.

This particular night she was awakened by a phone call. A counselor from the convention was calling to say that a girl who was hysterical did not want to go home and refused to speak to anyone except Sparks. Sparks recognized the symptoms of a drug problem and went to the girl. She promised not to send her home and not to report her to anyone. She also con- vinced the girl to tell her what she had taken so that she could phone a doctor friend to see if the girl needed to have her stomach pumped.

What the girl had taken was half a package of Mydol and there was no need for her stomach to be pumped. Sparks stayed with her until she was calm again. The two became friends even though the girl lived in California and Sparks now lived in Utah. The girl heard Sparks speak two or three times. And when the Sparks family went to California they stopped to visit Alice and her family; Alice and her family returned the visit in Utah. Alice's family knew that the girl was in trouble and they encouraged the friendship between her and Sparks hoping that it could be of some help.

Sparks says that Alice was a very pretty girl. It was her guilt and her poor self-esteem that she says in her diary made her view herself as ugly. Alice was also very intelligent and came from a family that by most community standards would have been considered ideal. On one visit to Sparks, Alice brought two diaries along with bits and pieces of scrap paper. It was during her worst times that she wrote on whatever happened to be handy rather than in either of the regular diaries. She gave the diaries and the notes to Sparks saying that perhaps they would help her to better understand what it was like for kids who are involved in drugs. Alice did not want to leave her diaries at home because she did not want her parents to read them, yet for some reason she could not bring herself to burn them.

Sparks said it was almost as if she had a premonition. Six months after Alice left the diaries, Sparks received a phone call from Alice's mother saying that Alice had died. Sparks did nothing with the diaries for a couple of months, but the idea of using them as the basis for a book began developing in her head.

3. How Closely Does the Book Resemble the Diaries?

The question of how much of Go Ask Alice was written by the real Alice and how much by Beatrice Sparks can only be conjectured. The two diaries which Alice wrote are locked away at Prentice-Hall, but even with these it would be an impossible question because as Sparks deciphered the notes from pieces of brown paper bags and other scrap paper, she says she thoughtlessly dropped these parts of the diaries into her wastebasket. Also, in seeking a release from Alice's parents, which she knew would be hard to obtain, Sparks asked for the right to use the diaries as the basis to which she would add other incidents and thoughts gleaned from similar case studies.

This was Sparks' compromise between her conscience and Alice's request that her parents never see the diaries. In this way, Sparks figured that Alice's parents could reject, as being Alice's, whatever parts of the diary that they did not want to believe. Sparks says that it took her three months of solid work to transcribe the diaries and prepare them for publication. She changed names, locations, and other identifying material.

The real Alice did not die of an overdose, but in a way that could have been either an accident or a suicide. Either way, Alice's judgement and the part she played in the accident was probably influenced by her being on drugs.

Sparks says that one thing which has surprised her is that when she wrote Alice's story, she thought it was unique, but she is constantly being questioned by people who have a relative or a friend whose story they think it tells.

4. Does Sparks Feel that She Broke a Trust by Publishing the Diary?

Apparently not. When I hinted at the similarity between doctor-patient relationships and counselor-youth relationships, Sparks said that she had been Alice's friend, not her counselor. Sparks was paid to be the speaker at the convention where she first met Alice, but other than that it was not a professional relationship.

The thing that did give Sparks moral concern was the language in the diary. She was truly troubled by it. She tried deleting swear words and vulgarisms, but then it didn't ring true. She sought advice from people whose judgement she admired and was reassured when they told her that she had to weigh the bad against the good. Introducing kids to four-letter words (which they probably already knew anyway) was a minus, but helping them understand the dangers of drugs was a bigger plus. Sparks thinks that what happened to Alice is not so likely to happen to kids today because they aren't as naive as Alice.

5. How Did the Book Get Published?

When Sparks lived in California, she did various kinds of writing such as newspaper columns and occasional ghost writing for Hollywood personalities, including Art Linkletter. It was just after the drug- related suicide of Linkletter's daughter that Sparks finished preparing Go Ask Alice for publication. Because of Linkletter's openness about the tragedy (the family had suffered a previous drug-related death which had been covered up) and his efforts towards promoting drug education, Sparks sent him her finished manuscript. He passed it on to his literary agent who sold it to Prentice-Hall.

6. Why Was Go Ask Alice Published Anonymously?

I went to the interview having heard from a reputable source in the publishing world that Go Ask Alice was published anonymously because Alice's parents had initiated legal action and planned to bring suit if the author were known in such a way that the book could be traced to their daughter. Sparks said the book was published anonymously so that it would be more credible to kids. When I mentioned the legal matter, she shrugged and said, "Oh, there were many reasons for publishing it anonymously, but my reason was for the kids." When I expressed surprise that someone who had spent years developing skill as a writer wouldn't feel a little sad not to receive credit for the one book whose distribution records she could hardly hope to beat, she assured me that she did not have an ego involvement with the book. She wrote it to make a contribution, not to become rich and famous. Besides the people who are important to her—her family and closest friends—knew all the time that it was her work.

7. Does Alice's Family Share in the Royalties?

No.

8. Why Has Sparks Now Decided to Step Forward and Take Credit for Go Ask Alice?

Sparks acknowledged that the answer to this question was a commercial one. She compared an author to a pound of meat up for sale. The fact that she wrote Go Ask Alice makes her worth that much more on the selling block. As she talked about this commercial side of the book world, she spoke in the third person as if she had nothing to do with the decisions. They are made back in New York by agents and publishers.

An example of the kind of commercialization that is taking place can be seen on the cover of the recently published Spanish edition of Voices. Even though the book is in no way related to Go Ask Alice except that it is about troubled teen-agers, the cover features the face of a pretty girl and ¿Recuerdas a Alicia? translates to Do You Remember Alice? In smaller print is a subtitle which translates, "Dramatic Stories of Youths Presented by the Author to Whom Alice Told Her Tragedy." Sparks' explanation for this is that "Voices" translated into Spanish wouldn't mean anything to readers.

9. Will We Be Hearing More about Beatrice Sparks?

My prediction is yes, we probably will. According to Sparks, both Voices and Jay's Journal are soon to come out in paperback. She wasn't sure whether it was Dell or Avon, but she said that one of them had contacted her about her availability in January and February of 1980 for a promotions tour and the TV talk show circuit. Public speaking is Sparks' forté so if this takes place, it will undoubtedly create interest in her books. She is optimistic that both Voices and Jay's Journal will be popular in the same way that Alice is. She bases her optimism on the idea that books do not really get popular with teen-agers until they come out in paperback.

This may be true, but still I'm not sure that I share her optimism. My 16-year-old daughter, Nicolette, who came after the interview to take the pictures was thoroughly charmed with Sparks. However, even on a long, boring trip home, through the Utah and Arizona deserts, she just couldn't get interested in reading Voices. She tried twice and then gave up and settled back to reread Go Ask Alice.

Despite the evidence of shrewd business instincts, Sparks seems in some ways surprisingly naive about the book world. For example, she questions the value of a literary agent. But surely it must have been her agent, the one provided by Art Linkletter, who protected her interests in the negotiations for 16 foreign language editions and in the television filming of Go Ask Alice. The only book Sparks had published previous to Alice was a didactic piece put out by a church-related press.

She is unclear about the difference between a juvenile and an adult division of a publishing house and what this means in the way of promotion and sales. She thinks of herself as an author for a general audience, yet she wants the financial benefits and the school and library related support that comes with a young adult audience. She agreed with me when I suggested that good books can open doors of communication between adults and teen-agers, but when I mentioned books by Robert Cormier, Richard Peck, Paul Zindel, and M. E. Kerr she had not heard of any of them. The only author whose name she recognized was Paul Zindel.

In conclusion, I think that what Sparks has in mind is to extend the "house that Alice built" into something far beyond the actual physical structure of the family home in Utah. She wants to use Go Ask Alice as the foundation for a publishing career. Perhaps she can do it, but in the words of another Alice, it's all "curiouser and curiouser."

Lauren Adams (essay date September-October 1998)

SOURCE: Adams, Lauren. "Go Ask Alice: A Second Look." Horn Book Magazine 74, no. 5 (September-October 1998): 587-92.

[In the following essay, Adams discusses whether Go Ask Alice deserves to be critically evaluated as a work of didactic fiction or nonfiction.]

Published in 1971 by Prentice-Hall, Go Ask Alice spread like wildfire among teen readers as soon as it appeared as an Avon paperback—"more than four million copies sold," touts the current Aladdin paper edition. Conjuring all the pulsating power of the Jefferson Airplane rock song from which it borrowed its name, Go Ask Alice gave an insider's look at the simultaneously glamorous and frightening world of drugs. As a curious pre-teen, I lapped up the "real diary" of this anonymous fifteen-year-old, eager to learn of the thrill and lure of those forbidden substances from the smugly satisfying position of not sharing Alice's fate (and of suddenly "getting" what Grace Slick was singing about).

My motives were not as lofty as those of the critics who strongly recommended the book when it first appeared. Knowing that many parents (and teachers and librarians) would be uncomfortable with the subject matter—and the vulgar language—of the book, the Christian Science Monitor implored, "Precisely because of this reluctance to expose one's children to such material … the book must be read." From Library Journal: "This diary depicts all the confusion, loneliness and rebellion associated with adolescence…. Unlike other ‘true-to-life’ stories, this is true (it's based on an actual diary). An important book, this deserves as wide a readership as libraries can give it." And Publishers Weekly recommended the book as an "eloquent look at what it must be like to be in the vortex" of drug use. However, PW was, it seems, the only source at the time to question the book's authenticity: "Maybe we're all too cynical on that subject these days, but it does seem awfully well written, and in any case brilliantly edited."

But most readers accepted the book for what it claims to be—a real diary by an anonymous teen. The question of authenticity was raised again only when Alleen Pace Nilsen interviewed Beatrice Sparks for School Library Journal in October 1979, after seeing Sparks listed on the cover of a new book as "the author who brought you Go Ask Alice. " Nilsen's article, "The House That Alice Built," depicts Sparks in a less than flattering light as a purported youth counselor with sketchy qualifications. Nilsen relates Sparks's claim that she compiled the book from diaries given her by a young girl she befriended but added other incidents and ideas from similar cases. Nilsen concludes, "The question of how much of Go Ask Alice was written by the real Alice and how much by Beatrice Sparks can only be conjectured." (In a letter to SLJ Sparks later defended not only the book's credentials and her own but the decor of her house, which also came under attack in the article.)

Whatever the proportions of their contributions, Sparks and her Alice together created a phenomenal success. What accounts for it? Timing, for one thing. Published right at the height of the psychedelic era and the dawning awareness that experimenting with drugs might have a downside, Go Ask Alice provided the perfect combination of voyeuristic appeal and high-mindedness: the book got credit for opening important lines of communication about the dangers of drug use. Though we don't know precisely to what extent Sparks shaped or added to the diary, she seems to know when to let Alice's own words and experiences speak for themselves—and thus speak directly to teen readers as she relates her feelings about friends, boyfriends, and the thrill and "beauty" of her first encounters with drugs. Yet somehow, either by conscious design or happenstance, each of Alice's drug-influenced adventures ends unhappily, whereupon Alice gives discourse to the evils of drugs and renews her promises to "rectify [her] life." This is all quite feasible as a true picture of the up-and-down cycle of addiction, and perhaps Sparks is simply fortunate that Alice makes the case against drug use so eloquently for her. However, Sparks does admit in Nilsen's article to altering the ending of the book: Alice did not die of an actual overdose as it says in the epilogue, "but in a way that could have been either an accident or a suicide … probably influenced by her being on drugs." Apparently the "probable in- fluence" was not sufficient to assure the moral of the story as Sparks intended: Alice took drugs; Alice died from drugs.

Clearly, many readers were taken with the story of the sweet, confused girl lured into the sordid world that would eventually take her life, and critics and educators were delighted with the opportunity to show the dangers of drugs to kids in a way accessible to them—"See, don't take my word for it. Just Go Ask Alice. " But much of the book's merit was derived from its status as a "real diary," so if it's not all Alice talking, does it deserve to be judged differently? As Nilsen pointed out, the book was "more or less exempt from the regular kind of literary criticism since it was supposedly the diary of a deceased young girl." If Sparks did in fact serve as an author who crafted and shaped her raw material, and we apply some literary standards accordingly, how will Alice stand up today?

Rereading the book in the context of current young adult literature, I was amazed by how unenthralling I found it. Poor Alice sounds ridiculously melodramatic and immature compared to today's more worldly teens. Upon learning of her family's impending move, she writes, "Dear precious Diary, I am baptizing you with my tears. I know we have to leave and that one day I will even have to leave my father and mother's home…." Most fifteen-year-olds I know are slightly more excited about the prospect of eventually getting some space away from mom and dad. Yet we must believe in Alice's innocence if we are to believe that she has no idea what's happening to her when she is slipped some LSD at a party twenty pages later. Somewhat harder to swallow than the acid-laced Coke are the moral platitudes slipped in throughout the diary. Alice writes of her friends, "Sometimes I think we're all trying to be shadows of each other…. Kids are like robots, off an assembly line." Above all, we are to believe that Alice is not a bad girl, but a good girl who loves God and her family and who happens to get mixed up in some very bad things.

Alice's childish and often vacuous ramblings may be plausible as the actual diary entries of a searching, as-yet-undefined teenager, and granted, I related to them more readily at age twelve than I can as an adult reader. Totally implausible, however, are the diary entries of Sparks's latest book, Annie's Baby, featuring a voice that sounds remarkably similar to Alice 's (with the exception of a few contemporary words such as rad tossed in and a plethora of capital letters and "soooooo"s to fill up the pages). The fourth in an apparent series of "anonymous true stories," following Almost Lost (about life on the streets) and It Happened to Nancy (about AIDS), Annie's Baby is about a fourteen-year-old who becomes pregnant by her abusive boyfriend. Even if we were to believe in this new incarnation of Alice (and while I assume that Sparks is attempting to simulate the "real" teen-age voice of her greatest publishing success, the similarities do again raise the question of how much of the original Alice was Sparks's fabrication), the book's overt didacticism precludes any aesthetic claims. Here Sparks is not satisfied with the lessons given by Annie herself—"[Mom] and Dad fought from as long back as I can remember … That's probably what makes me so insecure"—or even by the way that this particular diary actually responds to Annie with its own advice, a la Jiminy Cricket: "I'm going to think only of what Danny wants us to do … and besides, ‘everyone is doing it.’ [New paragraph] ‘Everyone is not doing it!’" In an amazing coincidence, Annie turns out to be distantly related to "Dr. B." (Sparks) and goes to visit for a therapeutic weekend. The tapes of their discussions as well as a quiz on "What Is Love?" are handily transcribed in Annie's diary. The transcripts do nothing to enliven Annie's tedious tale of her abusive relationship, pregnancy, and young motherhood. The book is appended with further information about pregnancy, STDs, abuse, and "out-of-wedlock births."

None of Sparks's more recent message-laden books will even approach the phenomenal popularity of Go Ask Alice. Their blatant fictionalizing assures that they will not be accepted as the sensational, true document that Alice was, while their heavy-handed proselytizing prevents them from being remotely successful as works of literature. And again, the timing of Alice 's release was exceptionally opportune, addressing breakthrough subject matter in young adult books at a time when we were ready to hear about it. With so many taboos having since been broken in young adult literature, is it possible for any book to have this kind of impact today?

Melvin Burgess's Smack was published to great acclaim in England (as Junk) in 1996, winning both the Carnegie Medal and the Guardian Prize for Fiction. Published here this year by Henry Holt, it continues to be touted as an important and realistic portrayal of teenage drug use. Twenty-seven years after Go Ask Alice —so what's new? As the straightforward title indicates, Smack is about heroin use, whereas Go Ask Alice is about using everything but heroin. The bigger difference is that Smack is a novel, complete with characters, setting, and plot. On its own terms, it can be judged fairly and squarely as a literary work. But has it been? As with Go Ask Alice, many critics seem most taken with the realism of the subject matter. "Based on actual people and incidents, this harrowing tale is as compellingly real as it is tragic" [Kirkus, 3/15/98]. Yet the author himself tells us in his opening note that some of the characters are "seeded from real people," but "the book isn't fact; it isn't even faction." He doesn't intend to present the book as a real account, just as a realistic depiction of teenage lives-on-the-edge. Burgess creates a palpable 1980s punk scene in Bristol, where the characters "squat" abandoned houses. The setting is much more tangible than that of Alice, which seems to float from suburb to city without much effect. The characters are more interesting, too. Gemma, Alice's counterpart, is no innocent waif but a thrill-seeker who leaves home and eventually tries heroin largely because she "was the most bored person she knew." The story is told by Gemma and nine other characters whose lives intersect, including her sweet boyfriend, Tar, who runs away to escape the abuse at home and gets lured into heroin use mainly to please Gemma. Yet each of Burgess's first-person narratives achieves a more distinct voice and personality than Alice manages to convey throughout her entire story. Their relationships with their families are also much more clearly drawn. Tar anguishes between guilty love and hate for his manipulative, alcoholic mother. Gemma feels stifled by her strait-laced parents, yet their suffering from her disappearance is sympathetically portrayed. By contrast, Alice's shapeless parents seem to hover ineffectually in the background, waiting for her next return home.

However, as Jennifer Brabander wrote in her May/June 1998 Horn Book review, "Establishing the 1980s Bristol setting … takes precedence over the story for too long and slows the book's pace considerably." Many readers may not hang in long enough to get to the "action" of the story: the decline into heroin addiction and the endless denials thereof; the turn to prostitution to support their habit; junkie pregnancies and babies; and the repeated attempts to climb back out of the life. So while Smack is easily a better-crafted book than Go Ask Alice, its own shortcomings might lead one to ask whether subject matter or literary merit was given greatest consideration when such high praise and prestigious awards were being doled out. And though it may still be more successful by literary standards, it can't compete with Alice as a groundbreaking book on teenage drug use. Probably nothing can.

Of course, that won't stop others from trying. Beauty Queen by Linda Glovach, published just this September by HarperCollins, also traces the descent into heroin addiction. "In the spirit of Go Ask Alice. …" reads the jacket copy, and in fact the young woman's gushing journal entries are very reminiscent of Alice's. The book is also more like Alice in that here, too, the action—the heavy drug use and plunge into a sordid life away from home and family—begins right away. The potential glamour of the drug is also conveyed here much more than in Smack, as Sam recounts her new life as a topless dancer, raking in big bucks while regular shots of heroin keep her feeling happy and beautiful. In fact, life seems pretty terrific to Sam—until her seedy cop boyfriend ditches her, driving her to the overdose that causes her inevitable death. The fast plot, earnest voice, and sexy cover will surely win young readers.

But Alice 's era is over. Go Ask Alice was a phenomenon of its time that cannot be repeated, by Sparks or anyone else. Education and discussion about drugs is part of every school child's experience, and there is probably no remaining subject under such a delightfully enticing taboo. The book's immense popularity spills over to today's readers in some part due to Alice 's universal adolescent angst, and in large part due to the power of legend and legacy—of the sixties' drug culture, of teens of every generation, and of Alice herself and her tragic tale.

VOICES: THE STORIES OF FOUR TROUBLED TEENAGERS AS TOLD IN PERSONAL INTERVIEWS TO BEATRICE SPARKS (1978)

Elizabeth J. Talbot (review date 1 September 1978)

SOURCE: Talbot, Elizabeth J. Review of Voices: The Stories of Four Troubled Teenagers as Told in Personal Interviews to Beatrice Sparks, edited by Beatrice Sparks. Library Journal 103, no. 15 (1 September 1978): 1653.

Sparks interviewed teens nationwide in an attempt to isolate shared problems [in Voices: The Stories of Four Troubled Teenagers ]. Cults, suicide, homosexuality, and peer pressure are supposedly illustrated through four first-person case studies and a final "two years later" follow-up chapter. Unfortunately, the teenagers are not believable; they seem to be merely vehicles for Sparks' theorizing. Statements regarding gays are blatantly damaging. Such melodramatic, superficial coverage of crucial issues perpetrates stereotypes and can be misleading. Not recommended.

Linda Serafini (review date October 1978)

SOURCE: Serafini, Linda. Review of Voices: The Stories of Four Troubled Teenagers as Told in Personal Interviews to Beatrice Sparks, edited by Beatrice Sparks. School Library Journal 25, no. 2 (October 1978): 166.

YA—Beatrice Sparks, author of Go Ask Alice (Prentice-Hall, 1971), claims to have interviewed over 1000 teenagers in 67 cities before settling on the four included in [Voices: The Stories of Four Troubled Teenagers as Told in Personal Interviews, ] this contrived, melodramatic book. All are remarkably similar—unhappy, unloved, insecure, and confused—and speaking in the first person they sound nearly identical. In the most convincing section. Mary, a bright, bored 16-year-old, joins a strict religious cult, willingly adapting to the exhausting regimen of 14-hour work days, little food, and total obedience until her parents have her kidnapped and deprogrammed. Mark, living with his egocentric father after his parents' divorce, gets involved in drugs and sex with an older woman before committing suicide. Lonely Millie, torn apart by her parents' divorce, is seduced by her typing teacher. Mrs. Stephens, and embarks on a sordid gay life-style. (This chapter will please Anita Bryant fans.) Jane is turned into a nymphomaniac by her first sexual experience. Sparks interviewed the same lot, except for Mark, two years later and supposedly found they'd given up their destructive patterns for marriage and motherhood, leaving readers with the impression that all 15 and 16 year olds are alienated while a mere 24 months later they are happy, self-assured individuals. A major disappointment for those waiting for a successor to Go Ask Alice.

JAY'S JOURNAL (1979)

Cyrisse Jaffee (review date May 1979)

SOURCE: Jaffee, Cyrisse. Review of Jay's Journal, edited by Beatrice Sparks. School Library Journal 25, no. 9 (May 1979): 90.

YA—Slated to be a television special, [Jay's Journal ] (purportedly taken from a real-life case) promises to be in high demand. Its subject matter (the occult, teenage suicide) and Sparks herself (author of Go Ask Alice, Prentice-Hall, 1971 and the much-criticized Voices, Times Bks, 1978) may also contribute to its popularity. Although her intent is to "educate young people as to the problems and pressures and weaknesses of their peers," this book will be relished only for its sensationalism and will neither illuminate, inform, nor reassure teens. The first part is tedious if authentic testimony to the anguish of an intelligent young person desperately looking for love and security. Jay's anger toward his parents, bitterness, and neurotic self-image are expressed in graphic terms. Finding school, relationships, drugs, and religion unsatisfying, Jay becomes attracted to the occult. His participation in rites, secret meetings, etc. is described in melodramatic fashion and builds to an inevitable climax of guilt, despair, and death. But Jay's emotional instability long before his involvement with the occult undercuts the book's heavy-handed message and lessens its impact. Jay's rantings become exceedingly unpleasant, leaving readers unmoved by his plight.

Gary L. Chamberlain (review date 2 June 1979)

SOURCE: Chamberlain, Gary L. Review of Jay's Journal, edited by Beatrice Sparks. America 140, no. 21 (2 June 1979): 458-59.

[In the following review, Chamberlain suggests that Jay's Journal is a powerful tool in teaching the dangers of the occult to vulnerable teens.]

"I need somebody to believe in me! (Somebody to love, baby)." Although that anguished cry could be voiced by many of us, the plea of 16-year-old Jay reflects a torment unexpected in the inner world of one so young. Church, parents, friends, academic and forensic success war with magic, the occult, fear, superstition, the dark side of Jay's self. If Jay's Journal is authentic, as a check with the publisher established, then we are witnesses to the remarkable transition of a lively, intelligent (I.Q. 149+), talented and loved young man into a suicide.

At the age of 16 and a half, Jay pointed his father's pistol to his right temple and shot himself. His suicide followed by three weeks the deaths of his two closest friends in separate accidents. Yet the journal reveals that the deaths of Brad and Dell were only the external events that brought Jay's inner turmoil to the surface as he gradually felt the darker forces within his being gain strength in the struggle for his body and mind.

Ironically, Jay was introduced to the occult while he was in a reformatory for two months. We watch his budding interest in this new field of knowledge: "Man, it's so strange and exciting." As he begins to challenge the traditional authorities of parents and church, he comes to rely more on charismatic occult leaders who unlock the "hidden powers" of his true self. He finds other teen-agers involved in "O" and receives support for his new venture. Yet he struggles with the power of his family's love for him, with his earlier Christian beliefs. At the same time, he brings his closest friends, Brad and Dell, into the "O" circle.

The careful reader can assess the claims Jay makes for the powers he finds in the occult—the ability to levitate coins, his "crucifixion" experience and whether his success in sports, debate and school are really the result of spells cast in occult meetings. But the experiences are valid for Jay. And yet, throughout his "scientific exploration" of the occult phenomenon, as he calls it, Jay is aware of the competing value systems vying for his loyalty and commitment:

What's the difference between what we were doing and faith? The church teaches faith…. It seems kind of childish and immature of me not to at least give the whole concept a chance. I know faith works! God said faith can literally move mountains. I believe that! I can't understand it, but I literally know both these strange but uncomprehended power sources work! Or are they both extensions of one?

If at this point Jay had shared his anguish with his parents or someone from the faith community, he might have had greater resources for the struggle. But the authorities had rejected the occult outright, and Jay never heard the reasons for that rejection. In addition, Jay's most important possession, his ability to love another, focused on two successive girlfriends who were also involved with the occult. Again and again, Jay tried to pull away, even to the point of breaking up with his girlfriend, whom he "marries" in a mock occult ceremony. But small events, "coincidences" we would say, lead him back. After a series of occult ceremonies, cattle mutilation in Colorado and his "commitment" to Satan in a black ritual, Jay experiences the expanding presence of evil in his life: "There is something … someone in this room. I can feel it…. Won't this thing ever ever go away?" The climax arrives not so much in Jay's suicide as in his realization that he cannot get out. He ends his young life the morning after he had resolved to see his bishop.

Jay's Journal is a disturbing book, not because of Jay's death or even because of the bizarre events which Jay and countless other teen-agers engage in from time to time. The question arises: If Jay, who is intelligent, successful, a fairly faithful Christian surrounded by a loving family, if Jay cannot finally cope with the turbulent creations of his own and others' minds, how can we begin to help those young people who lack even the strengths and supports Jay possessed? I once taught a course on the occult and tended to treat the matter as a passing fad, enjoyable for some, maybe a necessary symbolic substitute for others at points in their lives. But Jay's Journal reveals the power of the occult during precisely that most vulnerable of ages, romantic, emotional youth, when humankind is searching for truth and fidelity amid the struggle for independence from traditional authorities. An obligatory book for those who minister to youth.

IT HAPPENED TO NANCY (1994)

Publishers Weekly (review date 21 February 1994)

SOURCE: Review of It Happened to Nancy, edited by Beatrice Sparks. Publishers Weekly 241, no. 8 (21 February 1994): 256.

Presented as a diary edited by the woman who prepared Go Ask Alice for publication, [It Happened to Nancy ] is soberly dedicated "to every kid who thinks AIDS can't happen to him or her" and includes an earnest foreword by one of Nancy's doctors ("I worry about all the beautiful, innocent young Nancys"). The story itself, however, begins on a nearly euphoric note: Nancy, 14, is caught up in her first romance. Breathless exuberance turns to horror, anger and despair after her gentle-seeming boyfriend plies her with spiked wine coolers and rapes her in her own mother's bed. A few months later, blood tests indicate that Nancy is HIV-positive. Nancy succumbs relatively quickly to full-blown AIDS, thus giving readers a rapid-paced and horrific account of the disease's progress. Though the wrenchingly optimistic diarist devotes little space in her journal to the specific details of the various opportunistic infections she suffers, her description of a rectal ulcer leaves a lasting impression. The thought-provoking narrative ends with Nancy's death and is followed by an informative series of questions and answers about rape and AIDS. Ages 12-up.

Frances Bradburn (review date 1 June 1994)

SOURCE: Bradburn, Frances. Review of It Happened to Nancy, edited by Beatrice Sparks. Booklist 90, nos. 19-20 (1 June 1994): 1791.

Fourteen-year-old Nancy, an asthmatic, meets 18-year-old Collin, a gentle, caring young man who appears to be the answer to her dreams—until he rapes her, leaving her HIV-infected [in It Happened to Nancy ]. In spite of her rapid decline, explained in a note at the beginning of the book, as the result of her weakened immune system, Nancy leads a full, poignantly happy life because of the loving support of both friends and family.

It Happened to Nancy follows the YA-enticing diary format seen years ago in Go Ask Alice, which also was edited by Sparks. And the same reservations remain. Is this really a teen's diary, or is it Sparks' attempt to convey the reality of adolescent susceptibility to HIV/AIDS in a format that will impact YA readers? Does the occasional place lapse (the Arizona time zone is earlier than South Carolina's) reflect editing sloppiness while Sparks was changing both names and places for privacy, or a fiction writer's lack of focus? There is no way of knowing. Although this is frustrating for adults who monitor the children's/YA field, it's doubtful that it will make much difference to the books intended audience. YAs will devour this book just as they did its predecessor. Nancy's initial "love" relationship with Collin, her subsequent date rape, and the terror of her diagnosis will be real to teenagers, especially girls. And Nancy's support network is truly educational. Adolescents crave the kind of friends who stand behind Nancy throughout her ordeal (she even has a boyfriend!), as well as the loving relationship she has with both her parents, divorced but determined to work together during this tragedy.

Sparks provides additional educational information at the end of the book, "Questions Nancy Wanted Answered about Rape and AIDS," a good thing, since Nancy asked her diary several questions without providing their answers in the body of the text. Parts of the book are graphic: Nancy worries about blood from her menstrual cycles, how to dispose of her tampons, and how to deal with her rectal ulcers, a common manifestation of AIDS. And, of course, she dies—the ultimate AIDS inevitability—unlike what happens in so many other books about teens and AIDS, both fiction and nonfiction. She progresses from happy-go-luck junior-high-school student to AIDS patient to death in a spiral that will hold YAs' attention. without the didacticism of so many message-inherent titles. In spite of its flaws, Nancy's diary should be on our shelves.

Karen Hartman (review date October 1994)

SOURCE: Hartman, Karen. Review of It Happened to Nancy, edited by Beatrice Sparks. Voice of Youth Advocates 17, no. 4 (October 1994): 231.

It Happened to Nancy is taken from the pages of a young teenager's diary from the time she falls in love with a college student until two days before her death of AIDS. Nancy meets Collin, a handsome young man, who tells her he's a student at a local college, and she is immediately attracted to him. When Nancy's mother leaves town, Nancy arranges to spend time alone with Collin. He rapes her and leaves her heartbroken, scared, and confused. It isn't until she tries to call Collin after she convinces herself he is probably sorry for the rape and too embarrassed to call, that she discovers he isn't a student at the university at all and never has been. Nancy finally tells her mother about the rape and she comforts Nancy and tries to make her forget the entire incident. What she doesn't do is call the police or try to convince Nancy to go to the authorities, even though Nancy has seen Collin with a thirteen-year-old girl. It isn't until Nancy becomes ill and the doctor tells her she has HIV, that a counselor convinces her to tell the police but by that time Nancy suspects the other young girl has also been raped and dumped by Collin.

Nancy continues to tell what it is like to live with HIV and then full-blown AIDS. She hides her condition from her friends and tries to continue a normal life but finds it almost impossible. She moves back and forth between her mother's home and her father's home in another state until she becomes so ill that her parents send her to an aunt's ranch in Idaho. It is here that Nancy finds peace and an acceptance of her approaching death. She also meets with a Dr. Beatrice Sparks, the same woman who helped publish Go Ask Alice, and who helps Nancy prepare her diary for publication. Nancy's last days are filled with her desire to "do something in some way to help other kids who are in my situation." Nancy died quietly in her sleep after completing her book.

It Happened to Nancy is an honest depiction of what it is like to live with AIDS, knowing that one will not have normal life which includes college, marriage, children, and a career. Nancy is honest about her feelings and what happens to her as AIDS takes over her body. It also gives readers some important issues to consider. Should Nancy have met secretly with Collin? Should she have reported the rape to the authorities? Readers need to consider Nancy's mother's role in not telling the police. The police never find Collin during the course of Nancy's illness and one wonders if he could have been caught if Nancy had told about seeing him with a seventh grader shortly after her own rape. Readers might also consider the fact that Nancy doesn't tell her friends about her illness. Is she being fair to them to shut them out of her life? Does she owe it to her boyfriend to be honest about her condition?

This book has important messages to give teenagers about their lifestyles and the choices they make in life that could have deadly consequences. The last section of the book honestly answers questions that teens may have about AIDS. Teens will not only empathize with Nancy's story but they will also learn important lessons about behavior that could put them at risk of contacting HIV. Teens with HIV or AIDS will also have questions answered about their behaviors that could put others in danger of contacting HIV.

ALMOST LOST: THE TRUE STORY OF AN ANONYMOUS TEENAGER'S LIFE ON THE STREETS (1996)

Sandra L. Doggett (review date July 1996)

SOURCE: Doggett, Sandra L. Review of Almost Lost: The True Story of an Anonymous Teenager's Life on the Streets, edited by Beatrice Sparks. School Library Journal 42, no. 7 (July 1996): 105.

Gr. 9 Up—Sammy, 15, ran away from home in depression and despair, and this is the story of his return to his family and his road to recovery. [Almost Lost: The True Story of an Anonymous Teenager's Life on the Streets ] was written from tapes of his therapy sessions. In eight months, he transformed from being a gang member surviving in the streets to the glue that brought his parents together again. He graphically describes his reasons for joining the gang, his initiation, and its activities. The text is mainly a dialogue between Sammy and his counselor and occasionally one of his family members. The therapist uses various psychological techniques such as positive light therapy, optical illusions, positive thinking, etc. It is hard to imagine that the troubled teenager described in the beginning could change so dramatically so quickly and cure his father's cocaine habit, recover from depression, and restore his parents' marriage. Although this book attempts to give troubled students hope and a role model to follow, the scenario described is hardly the norm, and the young man comes across as wise beyond his years in the counseling sessions.

Cindy Lombardo (review date October 1996)

SOURCE: Lombardo, Cindy. Review of Almost Lost: The True Story of an Anonymous Teenager's Life on the Streets, edited by Beatrice Sparks. Voice of Youth Advocates 19, no. 4 (October 1996): 224.

It's hard to imagine anyone actually finishing [Almost Lost: The True Story of an Anonymous Teenager's Life on the Streets, ] this cloying, melodramatic account of one young teen's struggle with depression and life "on the streets." The writing is trite, stilted (would a therapist really refer to a YA patient as "dear dear Sammy" or "sweet neat Sammy"?), and pompous. Pop psychology platitudes (in italics no less) about the power of positive thinking are sprinkled liberally throughout the text. It's difficult to feel much sympathy for Sammy as he whines his way through his therapy sessions and even harder to believe that the book is based on actual treatment sessions with a credible therapist. Yes, there is a need for well written accounts of successful treatment of teenage depression and low self-esteem. Keep looking! [Editor's Note: From the "author" who gave us Go Ask Alice and other "true" tales.]

ANNIE'S BABY: THE DIARY OF ANONYMOUS, A PREGNANT TEENAGER (1998)

Deborah L. Dubois (review date June 1998)

SOURCE: Dubois, Deborah L. Review of Annie's Baby: The Diary of Anonymous, a Pregnant Teenager, edited by Beatrice Sparks. Voice of Youth Advocates 21, no. 2 (June 1998): 138.

[Annie's Baby: The Diary of Anonymous, a Pregnant Teenager ] is the actual diary of a fourteen-year-old girl who finds herself pregnant. It details her thoughts and feelings about her relationship with a boy two years older than she and the decisions her pregnancy forces her to make. Edited by the same person who did Go Ask Alice, this diary shows the emotional ups and downs of a girl in Annie's situation.

Annie is a good girl. She is on the soccer team and wants to please her single mom, but when Danny is interested in her, he becomes her whole world. She starts to lie about where she is, who she is with, and what she is doing. At first Danny treats her well, but when he abuses her and even attempts to rape her, she wants to be his girlfriend so badly that she makes up excuses for him. She begs him to take her back and then lets him run her life. Even after he rejects her when she becomes pregnant, she still says she loves him.

Annie feels that her diary is her only friend. She goes to a school for unwed mothers, has her baby, and tries to be a good mother. Her own mother is very supportive, but in the end, they find that it is impossible to keep the baby and give her a good life.

This book conveys how easy it is for a girl to get in trouble when she lets a boy become all-important to her. It portrays a very realistic picture of what teenage pregnancy and motherhood do to a young girl's life. The book includes factual information on pregnancy, STDs, and violence, and crisis hotline numbers to call. This book should be available for girls before they have to deal with this situation. It just might get a girl to think twice before she lets a boy take over her life.

Publishers Weekly (review date 22 June 1998)

SOURCE: Review of Annie's Baby: The Diary of Anonymous, a Pregnant Teenager, edited by Beatrice Sparks. Publishers Weekly 245, no. 25 (22 June 1998): 93.

Sparks (It Happened to Nancy ) shares another slice of a troubled teen's life, this time focusing readers' attention on the topic of teen sex and pregnancy [in Annie's Baby: The Diary of Anonymous, a Pregnant Teenager ]. The first, most excruciating entries in 14-year-old Annie's diary trace her victimization and impregnation by a manipulative and sadistic boyfriend. Completely obsessed with 16-year-old Danny ("He called me an ‘Earth Angel.’ And I think I'm going to commit myself completely to being just that for him, no matter what!"), Annie is less prepared than readers for the devastating fall she takes the day her home pregnancy test comes out pink. The remaining, more solution-oriented segments of the book convey Annie's arduous climb from rock-bottom ("I CANNOT BEAR TO FACE IT! I WILL NOT!") to a state in which she can confront her mistakes and plan for herself and her child. With the support of her exceptionally tolerant mother, patient teachers and a non-judgmental therapist (supposedly Sparks), Annie changes from a self-deprecating romantic ("Could plain me possibly be good enough for awesome him?") to a more level-headed realist, who learns, painfully, to put her baby's needs before her own. The book carries a strong anti-abortion sentiment and has an aura of soap opera as well. However, it provides a plethora of objective and valuable information about sex, pregnancy and birth control, and even includes a "What Is Love?" quiz to help girls assess their relationships. An appendix lists relevant statistics, crisis and information hotline numbers, and other useful resources. Tackling issues young adolescents are often reluctant to discuss with adults, this volume will likely find a place on the reference shelf. Ages 12-up.

Adolescence (review date fall 1998)

SOURCE: Review of Annie's Baby: The Diary of Anonymous, a Pregnant Teenager, edited by Beatrice Sparks. Adolescence 33, no. 131 (fall 1998): 720.

The everyday problems of teenage girls usually do not include motherhood, but when a fourteen-year-old discovers she is pregnant [in Annie's Baby: The Diary of Anonymous, a Pregnant Teenager ], the issues of shopping, soccer, and sleepovers are eclipsed by the need to make decisions that will affect her for the rest of her life: Is there anyone she can tell? Should she keep the baby? How long does she have to decide? Annie's Baby is the real life diary of an anonymous pregnant teenager, edited by Beatrice Sparks. Annie shows readers the many facets of her dilemma, from telling her mother to deciding her child's fate. Eloquent and moving, the book provides a message from one teen to others about important issues regarding self-identity, honesty, responsibility, and happiness.

Anne Tormohlen (review date May 2005)

SOURCE: Tormohlen, Anne. Review of Annie's Baby: The Diary of Anonymous, a Pregnant Teenager, edited by Beatrice Sparks. Kliatt 39, no. 3 (May 2005): 42.

[Annie's Baby: The Diary of Anonymous, a Pregnant Teenager ] is the story, written in journal format, of 14-year-old Annie and her pregnancy. What begins as a crush on a boy who showers her with attention spirals quickly downward as the boy becomes manipulative, controlling, and abusive. Annie has to come to grips with the fact that she is pregnant. She must somehow inform her mother; and she will get no support from her boyfriend. Annie wishes to keep her baby, but is confronted with the responsibilities of raising a child. She eventually decides that she simply cannot provide the kind of life she wishes for her baby. She longs for someone to talk to, but never approaches her mother, turning to her journal instead.

This book would make good discussion material for teenage girls at risk. Dating, teen sex, and pregnancy may make the material unsuitable for middle school libraries; however, Annie herself is only 14.

KIM: EMPTY INSIDE: THE DIARY OF AN ANONYMOUS TEENAGER (2002)

Lynne Remick (review date July 2002)

SOURCE: Remick, Lynne. Review of Kim: Empty Inside: The Diary of an Anonymous Teenager, edited by Beatrice Sparks. Kliatt 36, no. 4 (July 2002): 24.

During her senior year of high school, Kim comes to an important personal revelation—she's a few pounds overweight and "empty inside." Bound to a seesaw of emotional ups and downs, Kim binges, purges and fluctuates from "too heavy" to "too thin." Unable to maintain balance in her diet, weight or relationships, she cries out for help with a silence that no one can interpret. Through high school, Kim hides her eating disorder from her parents, siblings, best friends, school and peers. However, during her transformation from a high school student living at home in Arizona to a UCLA college freshman, the threads that keep her secret at bay fall apart—and so does Kim.

Written in the form of a diary ("edited" by Beatrice Sparks. Ph.D., editor of Go Ask Alice ), Kim: Empty Inside portrays the tormented emotions of a teenage girl suffering from anorexia nervosa. The most frightening aspect of this book lies in the fact that Kim, on the outside, appears to be like so many other relatively normal teenagers. While the subject matter of the book seems depressing, it proves enlightening, and ends with hope—which is something teens can never have too much of nowadays.

Michele Capozzella (review date September 2002)

SOURCE: Capozzella, Michele. Review of Kim: Empty Inside: The Diary of an Anonymous Teenager, edited by Beatrice Sparks. School Library Journal 48, no. 9 (September 2002): 234.

Kim, a high school senior, is on a downward spiral into anorexia [in Kim: Empty Inside: The Diary of an Anonymous Teenager ]. Speaking through her journal, she confides the hopes, fears, and pressures typical of a teenage girl. Her weight figures prominently in her wish to be accepted into the UCLA gymnastics program, and eventually she blames food for most of the bad things that happen to her. Kim progresses from not eating to the use of laxatives. Her rapidly changing emotions ring true, as do her feelings of helplessness—even though she is ashamed of her actions, she cannot stop herself. However, her willingness to admit her problem and accept help seems artificial and diminishes its severity. This book may encourage readers to search for additional material in the resources listed. For a more thorough picture, they should try Steven Levenkron's The Best Little Girl in the World (Turtleback, 1979).

Marlyn Roberts (review date October 2002)

SOURCE: Roberts, Marlyn. Review of Kim: Empty Inside: The Diary of an Anonymous Teenager, edited by Beatrice Sparks. Voice of Youth Advocates 25, no. 4 (October 2002): 286.

When Go Ask Alice (Prentice-Hall, 1971) was published, it claimed to be the actual diary of a teenage girl unwittingly caught up in the drug culture of the early 1970s. Later, psychologist/author Sparks admitted to having "compiled" the book from accounts written by some of her patients. This latest diary [Kim: Empty Inside: The Diary of an Anonymous Teenager ] joins others purportedly edited by Sparks. One might cynically say that Alice was written in a simpler time, for a less sophisticated audience, but it is nonetheless accurate. Teens, including this reviewer, were much more naïve than those today, and Alice had the dual advantage of being well-written and a novelty. Sparks's latest venture can only be accepted as a real teenager's diary by someone who has neither been nor met one. It is the story of a talented young gymnast who, at the start of the book, is about to graduate from high school. Kim is quite close to her parents and her older twin sisters. As is often the pattern with people who have eating disorders, she expects too much of herself. Kim berates herself in her diary for being too selfish, too stupid, too greedy. "I WILL GET BETTER," she constantly writes in block letters. Readers soon begin to see the pattern of bingeing and purging, and here Sparks's approach to Kim's internal self-abuse becomes even more heavy-handed. Kim continues her behavior when she goes away to college, reaching near-fatal levels. Kim is fortunate in having almost unbelievably understanding family members, teachers, friends, and boyfriend. Although some of her gymnastic teammates share her behavior, most of them are supportive and helpful.

Despite the obvious fabrication of the diary, Sparks describes the actual actions of the anorexic rather well—the bingeing and purging, the hiding or hoarding of food—which might trigger recognition by readers of themselves or friends. At the end of the book is a list of symptoms of eating disorders, as well as contacts for organizations that provide support and information. This book might be enjoyed and believed by younger teen girls, but will probably not even rate a second glance from older ones.

FINDING KATIE: THE DIARY OF ANONYMOUS, A TEENAGER IN FOSTER CARE (2005)

Jessica Swain (review date September 2005)

SOURCE: Swain, Jessica. Review of Finding Katie: The Diary of Anonymous, a Teenager in Foster Care, edited by Beatrice Sparks. Kliatt 39, no. 5 (September 2005): 23-4.

From start to finish, this diary [Finding Katie: The Diary of Anonymous, a Teenager in Foster Care ] is literally unreal. Chock-full of melodrama, Katie's story has more holes in it than a woodpecker tree. Her father, a Hollywood mogul, alternates between buying her lavish gifts and getting drunk, then "grabbing me in a real hurting way." Mom is presumably a druggie but, like Dad, is a cardboard character who evokes wildly inconsistent feelings in her daughter. In a typically vague, pivotal scene, Katie's father takes her to a place where "People were … it wasn't really dancing. It was too obscene for words, and my beautiful dress was being torn to shreds." Katie swoons from the few sips she's had to drink, then blacks out. Dad calls Katie a "ho" and a "slut," hits her, and dumps her out on Skid Row. From there Katie goes to a Salvation Army shelter, then on to foster care, where she misses the "dear nuns" of her Catholic school days, and nurtures a young abused girl with miraculous results.

The purple prose includes phrases like "my insides were gleefully dancing" and a poem by Katie that begins "Please stop dear tears / You're splashing in my ears." Brief information in the back relates to child abuse and crisis hotlines. Fans of other titles edited by Beatrice Sparks (e.g., Go Ask Alice ) will find this to be more of the same. The short diary entries, fast pace, and easy vocabulary might appeal to reluctant readers, and it's innocent enough fare for middle school students. Otherwise, save your money.

Faith Brautigam (review date October 2005)

SOURCE: Brautigam, Faith. Review of Finding Katie: The Diary of Anonymous, a Teenager in Foster Care, edited by Beatrice Sparks. School Library Journal 51, no. 10 (October 2005): 173-74.

Gr. 7-10—Fans of Go Ask Alice (S&S, 1971) and Dave Pelzer's A Child Called It (HCI, 1995) will be interested in this sensationalized autobiography [Finding Katie: The Diary of Anonymous, a Teenager in Foster Care ] written by a teen in dire straits. Katie is almost 16 when her diary begins. She is an only child, living on a private, gated estate near Hollywood. Her mother, a former beauty-pageant winner, was once attentive but now uses drugs and alcohol to dampen the psychological and physical pain of domestic violence. Her father, while violently abusing her mother, has always ignored Katie until he sees her in a two-piece bathing suit and begins showering her with gifts and inappropriate physical caresses. He becomes enraged when he finds out that Katie has seen a boy behind his back, and forces her, alone, onto the streets. Abandoned, she begins an odyssey from shelter to foster and group homes and, finally, to an adoptive mother. Teens will relate to Katie's lightning-quick mood changes, her idealism warring with depression, and her universal experiences with school and a first crush. They'll also get a glimpse into the lives of the enormously wealthy, followed by a look at life in truly hellish physical surroundings. Readers drawn to this account of lifelong emotional neglect and the resilience to withstand it won't mind the immature writing style, exclamation points and all, or the gaps in the narrative. A foreword explains the extent of abuse in the U.S., and brief information at the close includes toll-free crisis lines. If your library emphasizes popular materials, order multiple copies.