If you are a fan of the “Sweet Valley High” book series, you’d probably know the legendary Francine Pascal. The famous author recently died at 92. Her daughter, Laurie Wenk-Pascal, confirmed that she died due to lymphoma on Sunday, July 28, at New York-Presbyterian Hospital in Manhattan.
St. Martin’s Publishing Group, which proudly published the “Sweet Valley High” series, paid their tributes. The group stated that Francine Pascal’s characters will always impact teenagers and adults alike.
Who Is Francine Pascal?
Francine Pascal, born in Manhattan on May 13, 1932, and raised in Jamaica, Queens, became popular due to her young adult series, which debuted in 1983. Notably, Pascal’s creation comprises a series spanning 181 books. She started by writing the first 12 installments.
The series that came after the lives of identical twins Elizabeth and Jessica Wakefield was eventually maintained by a team of writers under Pascal’s guidance. In a 1988 interview, Francine Pascal described the nature of her series as capturing “that moment before reality hits.”
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She further described it as cherishing romantic ideals of sacrifice, love, loyalty, and friendship before the complexities of adulthood come in.
More Details About Francine Pascal
Before “Sweet Valley High” became a popular name, Pascal studied journalism at New York University. She also worked as a freelance writer for publications such as True Confessions, Cosmopolitan, Modern Screen, and Ladies’ Home Journal.
Francine Pascal was first married to Jerome Offenberg, with whom she had three daughters before their divorce in 1963. Sadly, their daughter Jamie Stewart passed away in 2008. In 1964, Pascal remarried John Pascal, with whom she had worked on the soap opera “The Young Marrieds.”
Her collaboration with John Pascal was the beginning of Francine Pascal’s successful writing career. John Pascal passed away in 1981, and in an old interview, Francine Pascal fondly described him as “a lovely man, a wonderful father, a beautiful writer.”
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Books By Francine Pascal
In addition to her work on television, Francine Pascal authored several books for adults. Her 1974 nonfiction work, “The Strange Case of Patty Hearst,” explored the infamous Patty Hearst trial. Pascal also wrote adult novels such as “Save Johanna!” and “If Wishes Were Horses,” the latter a fictionalized account of her life with her late husband.
Pascal’s foray into young-adult fiction began with “Hangin’ Out With Cici” in 1977, which later inspired a sequel and an afternoon TV special. She followed this with “My First Love and Other Disasters” and “The Hand-Me-Down Kid,” further establishing her influence in the genre.
After a conversation with an editor about envisioning the teenage version of the hit CBS series “Dallas,” Francine Pascal created “Sweet Valley High.” This concept quickly became a success, leading to the creation of the series centered on Elizabeth and Jessica Wakefield.
The “Sweet Valley High” Series
According to Francine Pascal in an interview, the twins are “the most adorable, dazzling 16-year-old girls imaginable.” After writing the first 12 books herself, Pascal expanded the franchise with several spinoffs, including “Sweet Valley Twins”, “Sweet Valley Kids”, and “Sweet Valley Junior High.”
The series sold over 200 million copies, primarily appealing to teenage girls. In 1988, Francine Pascal noted that her books reached a new audience of young readers, stating, “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 non-readers. If they go on to Harlequin romances, so what? They’re going to read,” she added. After completing the initial books, Francine Pascal provided outlines and guidance for other writers to continue the series.
She supported other writers with a comprehensive “bible” that detailed the characters and their relationships across the series. Though the original “Sweet Valley High” series concluded in 2003, it was revived in 2011 with “Sweet Valley Confidential,” which explored the lives of the characters a decade after the original series.
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