Sweet Valley Kids Books In Order

Publication Order of Sweet Valley Kids Books

Publication Order of Sweet Valley Kids: Hair Raiser Super Special Books

Publication Order of Sweet Valley Kids: Super Snooper Books

Publication Order of Sweet Valley Kids: Super Special Books

Sweet Valley Kids is a series of children’s books written by Francine Pascal. The series tells the story of a pair of identical twins as they struggle to maneuver elementary school.

+The Story

Sweet Valley High is one of the most popular series in literary history. The series has also broken several records when it comes to sales, though that achievement isn’t so impressive when one realizes that Pascal wrote over a hundred Sweet Valley High books.

The books were written with teenage girls in mind and they followed the exploits of beautiful twins who, though equally popular, fell on opposite ends of the moral scale.

The decision to create spinoffs of Sweet Valley High was largely driven by financial factors. First, Pascal wrote the Sweet Valley Twins series which took readers back to middle school and showcased the lives of everyone’s favorite Valley High characters back when they were 12.

The Sweet Valley Kids series was merely a further exploration of that trajectory, with Pascal essentially going even further back in time and exploring the lives of the Valley High kids back when they were seven-years-old.

And that is the premise of the Sweet Valley Kids series in a nutshell. Jessica and Elizabeth Wakefield are 7-year-old twins. They are identical in every physical aspect that matters.

And they both love it. Being the only twins in their class makes them feel special. It helps that they are close. Jessica and Elizabeth are always in one another’s company. They wear the same outfits and they play the same games.

The Sweet Valley Kids series finds them at a point in time when they are still best friends. While fans of Sweet Valley High know Jessica as the mean cheerleader that is only ever out for herself, the Jessica in the Kids series is a sweet, innocent girl that only wants to be liked by her peers.

Elizabeth doesn’t differ that drastically from her Valley High persona. She’s as warm and kind as they come. However, that doesn’t stop her from clashing with her twin. Despite the innocence of her early years, elements of selfishness tend to crop up in Jessica’s behavior every once in a while.

While the Valley High books typically revolved around Jessica’s melodramatic life, the plots of the Sweet Valley Kids series are far simpler. Because the books are written with elementary kids in mind, Pascal largely confines the stories she tells to innocent concepts such as a missing hamster and a mysterious substitute teacher.

Pascal has been commended for treating the Sweet Valley Kids books as their own entity rather than a prequel. Even though the series takes place before the Sweet Valley Twins and Sweet Valley High books, Pascal doesn’t obsess over the need to set up future stories.

She does not set out to explain why Jessica, Elizabeth, and their friends became the characters that everyone saw in the Valley High books. Her focus is on telling sweet, entertaining stories for elementary readers.

The Valley Kids books have allowed Pascal to dominate every notable age group amongst young readers. She knows that once she gets children hooked to the Valley kids series, they will follow Jessica, Elizabeth, and their friends all the way to the Sweet Valley High series and even beyond.

+The Author

Francine Pascal has been writing and selling books in the millions of copies for decades. And she has never understood why notable publications like the New York Times and USA Today never take any note of her.

Of course, even fans of the Sweet Valley novels know that Pascal isn’t that highly regarded amongst literary circles. Her books are considered fluff of the lowest quality. They have been compared to junk food.

And Pascal has often shrugged those criticisms off, many times rebutting that she never set out to write literary masterpieces and merely aimed to produce reading material that would appeal to teenagers.

But one assumes that she must have taken offense with the indifference to her publishing achievements at some point in her life. Pascal believes she is a literary icon worth celebrating.

Born in Manhattan, New York in 1938 to an auctioneer, Pascal’s books did not necessarily inspire a generation of kids. But they definitely got a lot of them into reading.

Most teenage girls from the 80s and 90s will attest to getting consumed by the obsession that was Sweet Valley High. And Pascal was able to capitalize on the success of her soap operas about high school twins by producing a litany of spinoffs.

Of course, it is should be noted that Pascal did not personally write the Sweet Valley novels. Her role in the whole process was to write outlines for stories, get them sold and then work closely with a ghostwriter to produce the novels.

A graduate of New York University, Francine Pascal married John Pascal, a journalist, in 1965. Their coupling was a godsend for Francine who has often referred to her husband as a mentor who helped her produce several scripts before his death in 1981, the result of lung cancer.

Francine Pascal had written a couple of novels before she finally pitched the Sweet Valley series to a publisher. Pascal didn’t think her sophisticated approach to writing would appeal to teenage readers, so she decided to use ghostwriters.

The decision paid off. It allowed Pascal to produce innumerable Sweet Valley books most of which have universal appeal.

+Surprise! Surprise!

Elizabeth and Jessica Wakefield are twins, and they love it. It isn’t just that they feel special being the only twins in their class, but they also enjoy dressing alike and playing together.

With their 7th birthday on the horizon, Elizabeth and Jessica undertake the task of planning their own party. They go about getting the food together, collecting the decorations and even buying one another presents.

+Runaway Hamster

Elizabeth and Jessica Wakefield love the perks of being twins, such as wearing matching outfits to school. They get to play together and they even sit together in class.

When the twins are charged with taking care of the class hamster during winter vacation, a rift begins to form. Elizabeth is excited about the assignment but Jessica hates the hamster.

She thinks it’s disgusting. However, Jessica did not mean to let the hamster escape. She just forgot to close its cage after she fed it. Now Jessica is worried that if she doesn’t find the hamster, everyone will hate her.