Fan mail

Here’s another thing I love about my daughter: she’s not too old to write a fan letter to a favorite author.

Alice has long been a fan of the Alice series of books by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor. They don’t have a hook like being a detective (Nancy Drew), or part of a group (Babysitters Club) or deal with wizardry or the supernatural. They seem to be a series about a pretty everyday girl whose experiences and exploits are familiar to other (probably white, suburban, middle class) girls. The initial attraction for Alice was that the series featured a character with her name.

Alice was my grandmother’s name. But it’s not very common among the kids born in the early 1990s. So, the good news is that I usually didn’t need to put more than Alice’s first name on things for a teacher to know which was her’s. The bad news is that she may have slightly felt out of place with no one else sharing her name. When she was little and books made a steady entry into the household, we looked for books with her name in the title (Alice in Wonderland, natch, but also Alice and Greta and Angelina and Alice). And somewhere about 3rd or 4th grade she discovered this series.

She’s been hooked ever since. I think the Alice in the book is well into high school now, so like other good young adult fiction, my Alice sees herself in Alice’s experiences. But more than that, the Alice books are written by an author who lived near where we did in Maryland, went to the church we occasionally went to, and featured a friend character whose name is very close to one of Alice’s best Maryland friends.

On her own, Alice told me a couple weeks ago that she’d written a fan letter to the author. I was shocked and surprised and absolutely thrilled. Aren’t teenagers supposed to be known for their apathy and disinterest in others? Especially an adult other, whom they’ve never met and can’t get anything out of? She read the letter to me, then asked if Ms Naylor would like it? Like it? If I were her, I’d start crying, it was so great.

Yesterday Alice discovered that her letter was featured on Ms Naylor’s Alice blog.

The only downside is that not too surprisingly, the author receives a lot of fan mail from readers younger and older than Alice. Her response to Alice’s letter was very nice. But I don’t think my Alice felt too rewarded (I’m reading into her reaction). Perhaps if she’d gotten an email back, or some other personal recognition (which is what she was going for, I believe). But this is the reality of a busy author’s life. She may have someone else do her blog and her fan mail. Or maybe posting letters with a brief response is about all she has time for. Who knows.

I believe Alice’s letter was an honest and pure gesture of appreciation, whatever the reaction. And that gesture has made me an ever bigger fan of my own daughter.

~ by modelmom on September 30, 2009.