Francine Pascal, the author whose “Sweet Valley High” series of young-adult novels became a cultural touchstone for generations of readers starting in the 1980s, died Sunday of lymphoma at New York-Presbyterian Hospital in Manhattan. She was 92.
Francine Pascal, creator of the 'Sweet Valley High' book series, dies at 92
Her daughter Laurie Wenk-Pascal announced the news to The New York Times.
The first book in the series, Double Love, was published in 1983—an attempt, Pascal would say, to fill the void in young adult literature for a Dallas-style soap opera. Set primarily in a fictional high school in a fictional suburb of Los Angeles, the book series initially focused on twins Jessica and Elizabeth Wakefield. As the series grew, eventually encompassing hundreds of sequels, the Wakefields would age from high school through college, their adventures encompassing both reality-based teen drama and comedy as well as more fantastical happenings akin to Nancy Drew and even the Scooby-Doo gang.
Pascal was born Francine Paula Rubin on May 13, 1932, and grew up in Jamaica, Queens. She later studied journalism at New York University. Early in her writing career, she freelanced for magazines such as True Confessions and Cosmopolitan. In the early 1960s, she co-wrote with her husband John Pascal for the New York-based television soap opera The Young Marrieds. The Pascals would later collaborate with Francine's brother Michael Stewart on the book for the 1969 Broadway musical George M!
