If you were a girl growing up in the ‘80s and ‘90s, you almost certainly read one of the most popular book series aimed specifically at that young girl demographic: Sweet Valley High. Created by Francine Pascal, the Sweet Valley High series centered on blonde and blue–eyed identical twins Jessica and Elizabeth Wakefield. Though the twins were identical in looks, they definitely weren’t identical in personality, giving young readers a chance to identify more with either spunky Jessica or practical Elizabeth.
The first four books in the Sweet Valley High series, Double Love, Secrets, Playing with Fire, and Power Play were published in 1983. Over the course of about 152 books, the story of Jessica and Elizabeth played out, until the final book in the series came out in 1998. In addition to the original SVH series, there were a number of spin-offs, including a short run of thrillers where the girls were involved in mysteries, a series featuring the girls in elementary school, and Sweet Valley Confidential, a 2011 follow-up that explored what happened to the twins after high school.
While every book had the author byline as “Created by Francine Pascal,” what you might not know is that Pascal didn’t actually write any of the original books in the series! A trend of many book series of the ‘80s and ‘90s, while Pascal did come up with many of the plots and ideas for SVH, she didn’t actually write any of the novels themselves. Pascal had previously written for a short-lived television soap opera, The Young Marrieds, but as she has stated in an interview, that writing gig was purely for the money. After the success of a couple novels, Pascal had an idea for a teen-centric television soap opera set in high school, but no one at the time was interested. Times would eventually change in that regard, but this was the ‘80s, and teen soaps just weren’t a thing quite yet.
In the end, Pascal turned that teen soap idea into SVH when she came up with the concept of having a pair of identical twins as the main characters. She sat down and wrote out a character bible and the outlines for the first 12 SVH stories, and soon enough Bantam books had ordered all twelve. From the start, Pascal had no interest in writing the books herself, as her writing had a lot more humor than she envisioned the SVH books to contain. Instead, she oversaw a team of ghostwriters who would use the character bibles and her detailed outlines to then write up the book itself. Apparently, the ghostwriters didn’t have much leeway to use their own creative ideas, so it was really like a write-by-numbers situation for them. Readers had no idea, of course, and ate up book after book, turning Sweet Valley High into pretty much an instant success.
A little over 10 years after the books had first started being published, the series was adapted into a half-hour dramedy television series, starring the former Doublemint twins Brittany and Cynthia Daniel as Jessica and Elizabeth, respectively. The show ran for four seasons and 88 episodes, and was only loosely based on the actual books. Over the years, there have been various attempts to turn the series into a movie as well, but that still hasn’t materialized quite yet. The last updates on the movie were in 2019, when it was announced that Jessica Gao, whose credits include Rick and Morty and Silicon Valley, would be taking over writing duties. Will the movie ever actually be made? Only time will tell.
Whether or not the movie gets made, you can always dive back into the adventures of the Wakefield twins with copies of the physical books, or even in new ebook digital formats. Were you more of a Jessica or an Elizabeth? What were your favorite storylines from Sweet Valley High? Let us know in the comments!
- The SVH books have been translated into 27 different languages, and have reportedly sold over 150 million copies worldwide.
- James Mathewuse painted all of the original book covers for SVH. He also did the covers for numerous Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys books, and even painted President John F. Kennedy in 1962.
- In 1985, the release of SVH title Perfect Summer became the first paperback young-adult fiction title to make it onto the New York Times Bestseller List.
- According to one of the ghostwriters, only three curse words were allowed in any of the SVH novels: damn, hell, and bitch.
- In 1988, a board game version of the books was released, though the game is supposedly pretty vapid, basically promoting the message that all girls need boyfriends in order to succeed. Wow!
- The SVH books have been translated into 27 different languages, and have reportedly sold over 150 million copies worldwide.
- James Mathewuse painted all of the original book covers for SVH. He also did the covers for numerous Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys books, and even painted President John F. Kennedy in 1962.
- In 1985, the release of SVH title Perfect Summer became the first paperback young-adult fiction title to make it onto the New York Times Bestseller List.
- According to one of the ghostwriters, only three curse words were allowed in any of the SVH novels: damn, hell, and bitch.
- In 1988, a board game version of the books was released, though the game is supposedly pretty vapid, basically promoting the message that all girls need boyfriends in order to succeed. Wow!
