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Francine Pascal

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Francine Pascal, a native New Yorker, is an author best known for creating the Sweet Valley series of young adult novels. Sweet Valley High was the backbone of the collection, and was made into a popular television series. There were also several spin-offs, including The Unicorn Club, Sweet Valley University, and Sweet Valley Sorority. Francine Rubin graduated from New York University in 1958. It was there that she first met author and journalist John Pascal and, in 1965, they were married (the second marriage for each). Francine often credited John as her writing mentor, and they collaborated on several projects, including writing scripts for the ABC soap opera The Young Marrieds, which aired from 1964 - 1966. John died of cancer in 1981, at 49 years old. Francine's brother was the prolific Broadway playwright and librettist Michael Stewart, who wrote the books to such Broadway musical hits as Bye Bye Birdie, Hello, Dolly!, and 42nd Street. Francine, her husband John, and her brother Michael worked together writing the book to the Broadway musical George M!, which ran at the Palace Theatre from 1968 - 1970. A television version of George M! was aired on NBC in 1970. Michael Stewart died in 1987. Since then, Francine has revised his musical Mack & Mabel. She has also worked on the revision of another of his musicals, Carnival!, for the Kennedy Center in Washington. Francine's first young adult novel, published in 1977, was called Hangin' Out with Cici, in which her heroine, Victoria Martin, went back in time and met her mother as a teenager. It was televised as an ABC After-School Special entitled My Mother Was Never a Kid. She has written two other Victoria Martin books: My First Love and Other Disasters, and Love and Betrayal & Hold the Mayo. Another of her early novels, The Hand-Me-Down Kid, was also made into an ABC After-School Special. More recent works include the Caitli