Francine Pascal, creator of the Sweet Valley High book series, has died at 92 in Manhattan. The first Sweet Valley High book came out in 1983, and it soon sparked 182 more books in the series as well as spin-offs like Sweet Valley Kids, Sweet Valley Twins, Sweet Valley Junior High, and Sweet Valley University, among others. It was also adapted into a TV series that ran from 1994 to 1997, and Sweet Valley Twins was recently made into a graphic novel series.
Together, the Sweet Valley books have sold over 200 million copies.
Francine Pascal used her background in soap opera scripts to write the first 12 books in the series, and the rest were created by a team of writers with her guidance — including a detailed outline and a “bible” of descriptions of the Sweet Valley personalities and relationships.
The series is credited for helping to spread the popularity of the California “Valley Girl” aesthetic. She also got a generation of teen girls hooked on reading. In an interview with People, she said,
“These books have uncovered a whole population of young girls who were never reading. I don’t know that they’re all going to go on to War and Peace, but we have created readers out of nonreaders. If they go on to Harlequin romances, so what? They’re going to read.”
Read more about this story at the New York Times.
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