Beatrice Sparks (born
January 15, 1918) is an American
therapist and Mormon youth
counselor who is known for producing books purporting to be the
'real diaries' of troubled teenagers. The books deal with topical
issues such as
drug abuse,
Satanism,
teenage
pregnancy or
AIDS, and are presented as
cautionary tales. Although Sparks always presents herself as merely
the discoverer and editor of the diaries, records at the
U.S. Copyright Office show that in fact she
is listed as the sole author for all but two of them.
Biography
Sparks was
born in Goldburg, Idaho
and began
working with teenagers in 1955, after attending the University of
California at Los Angeles
and Brigham Young University
. She has worked as a
music therapist at Utah State Mental Hospital
and taught
continuing education
courses at BYU.
Critics have called the precise extent of Sparks' qualifications
and experience into question. The editorial credit on some of the
diaries published by Sparks identifies her as "Dr Beatrice Sparks,
PhD". However, when journalist Aileen Pace
Nilsen interviewed Sparks for
School Library Journal in 1979, she
was unable to find any confirmation of where or when Sparks earned
her doctorate. Nilsen also wrote that Sparks was "vague about
specifics" when asked about her counselling qualifications and
professional experience.
Sparks said that her experience working with troubled adolescents
made her want to produce cautionary tales that would keep other
teens from falling into the same traps. Her first work,
Go Ask Alice, was published
under the byline 'Anonymous' in 1971. In interviews conducted over
the next few years, Sparks identified herself as the book's
editor.
In her interview with Nilsen, Sparks said
Alice consisted
partly of the actual diary of one of her patients, and partly of
fictional events based on her experiences working with other teens.
The extent to which
Alice is based on reality remains a
highly controversial question; see
Go Ask
Alice for further details.
In 1973,
Marcella Barrett, a Pleasant Grove, Utah
woman whose son Alden had committed suicide at the age of 16, read a newspaper interview
with Sparks and became convinced that she was the right person to
bring Alden's diary to the public. The result was
Jay's
Journal, which tells the story of a teenage boy drawn into
Satanism.
Barrett's family were horrified by the book. They insisted that
Alden had never been involved with the occult and that Sparks had
used only 21 entries from his journal (out of 212 supposed entries
that appeared in the finished book). Sparks has stood by the book,
claiming that she got the extra material from letters and
interviews with Alden's friends. (See
Jay's Journal for a fuller
discussion.)
Since
Jay's Journal, Sparks has produced many more 'real
diaries,' including
It Happened to Nancy: By an Anonymous
Teenager (dealing with AIDS),
Almost lost: the true story
of an anonymous teenager's life on the streets (gang
violence),
Annie's baby: the diary of Anonymous, a pregnant
teenager,
Treacherous love: the diary of an anonymous
teenager (pupil seduced by teacher),
Kim: empty inside:
the diary of an anonymous teenager (
eating disorders) and
Finding Katie: The
Diary of Anonymous, A Teenager in Foster Care. None of these
has achieved the success or notoriety of her first two 'diaries,'
and none appears to have been received by critics or readers as
anything other than fiction.
Sparks
lives in Provo,
Utah
.
Bibliography
Diaries
All these books were actually published with the byline
'Anonymous'. Some of them credit Sparks as editor; others (such as
Go Ask Alice) do not mention her at all.
Almost Lost and
Kim: Empty Inside are the only
books for which Sparks does not claim copyright as author of the
entire work. For both these books, Sparks lays claim only to the
editing, compilation and some (unspecified) additional material.
The record for
Kim adds the note that some material is
taken from a preexisting diary.
Other works
- Voices: The Stories of Four Troubled Teenagers as Told in
Personal Interviews to Beatrice Sparks (1978)
- The Kalamity Kids (scripts) (1991)
Jonathan Munoz
References
External links
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