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Classic series about twin teens is shallow but satisfying. Read Common Sense Media's Sweet Valley High Series review, age rating, and parents guide.
- Pascal Had No Interest in Writing Them ...
- So She Had An Oxford Graduate Do it.
- Readers Thought Pascal Was A teenager.
- Pascal Also Had A 100-Book Contract.
- Only Three Curses Were allowed.
- It Was The First Teen Title to Make The New York Times Bestseller List.
- But The Series Had Its detractors.
- The Cover Artist Painted The President.
- The Re-Release Put The Girls on A diet.
- The Board Game Was Pretty Vapid.
A former journalist, Pascal had shopped a teen-oriented television soap opera in the 1970s but had no takers. In the early 1980s, she decided the serialized format might lend itself to an ongoing line of books. Pascal’s agent, Amy Berkower (who also shepherded the Choose Your Own Adventure franchise) sold the idea to Bantam. Pascal wrote a referenc...
Ghostwriters would get a book outline from her with plot points to follow; they’d be able to add their own flourishes and character moments, then turn the manuscript around for Pascal’s approval. One regular writer, Oxford graduate Amy Boesky, described the outlines as like “long, free-verse poems,” with eight or nine pages of single-spaced suggest...
The tribulations of the Sweet Valley gang—stolen boyfriends, social cliques, irritating parents—so resonated with her readership that some assumed Pascal was roughly their age. One autograph seeker at a public signing approached her and exclaimed she thought Pascal would be 16; in fact, Pascal’s daughters were older than that. The author was in her...
While it’s not unusual for publishers to lock up celebrated, successful authors to contracts, Pascal may have had one of the most substantial commitments in the book business: Bantam signed her to a 100-book deal. (The series grew to roughly 152 entries in total, not including spin-off titles like Sweet Valley Twinsthat de-aged the girls to grade s...
According to ghostwriter Ryan Nerz, the SVH protocol allowed for only three semi-profane words to appear in the titles: damn, hell, and bitch. Nerz peppered his manuscripts with them, then let editors pare down the expletives to an acceptable number.
In just a few short years, SVH took up permanent residence on nightstands in teen bedrooms across the country. Perfect Summer, released in 1985, became the first paperback young-adult fiction title to crack the venerable New York Times Bestseller List. The following year, 18 of the top 20 young adult spots in Waldenbooks and B. Dalton were Sweet Va...
While Sweet Valley High intoxicated young readers who may never have otherwise picked up a book outside of assigned reading, critics believed it was the literary equivalent of “junk food” and nothing more than a sanitized version of the Harlequin romances; libraries didn’t like how the flimsy spines looked on shelves. Pascal dismissed the talk, say...
Book cover artist James Mathewuse was highly sought after by the New York publishing houses: In addition to doing work for theNancy Drew and Hardy Boys lines, he painted roughly 250 Sweet Valley covers. Two decades earlier, he was asked by the Democratic National Committee of Florida to paint President John F. Kennedy. Mathewuse also studied under ...
When Random House re-issued the series in 2008, they circulated a letter to journalists indicating certain dated references would be updated for contemporary readers. The twins’ red Fiat, for example, became a Jeep Wrangler. Curiously, they also shrunk the dress sizes of the girls from the original “perfect size 6” to a “perfect size 4.” The move p...
Few pop culture touchstones escaped the board game treatment in the 1970s and '80s. In Sweet Valley High: The Game, players could “trade boyfriends” and acquire material goods in order to win. You might also land on a spacethat lets you give your maid the day off. Who can’t relate?
- Shelve Playing with Fire.
- Shelve Sweet Valley High: Three Novels: Double Love, Secrets & Playing with Fire.
- Shelve Power Play.
- Shelve All Night Long.
Caroline Pearce has always been one of the least popular girls at Sweet Valley High. But when she invents a new out-of-town boyfriend, people finally start to pay attention to her. Brown-eyed, six foot Adam and his romantic love letters are the talk of the school.
Sweet Valley High is a series of young adult novels attributed to American author Francine Pascal, who presided over a team of ghostwriters to produce the series. The books chronicle the lives of identical twins Jessica and Elizabeth Wakefield, who live in the fictional Sweet Valley, California, a suburb near Los Angeles. The twins and their ...
Jul 3, 2014 · As part of my aim to re-read (or in some cases read for the first time!) vintage young adult novels primarily published in the 1980s and the 1990s, I decided that Sweet Valley High would be the perfect place to revisit. double love: a review. And now, onto the re-read!
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Jan 13, 2021 · Long before Twilight and Hunger Games were even a thought, writer Francine Pascal dominated the YA scene with her prolific Sweet Valley High book series. Growing up in the '80s or '90s, you couldn't avoid SVH fever — which makes sense, considering the series spawned more than 140 books during those decades alone.
