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.
Sparks is a native of Goldburg, Idaho. She 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.
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.
Go Ask Alice (1971)
Jay's Journal (1978)
By an Anonymous Teenager (1994)
The True Story of an Anonymous Teenager's Life on the Streets (1996)
The Diary of Anonymous, a Pregnant Teenager (1998)
The Diary of an Anonymous Teenager (2000)
The Diary of an Anonymous Teenager (2002)
The Diary of Anonymous, A Teenager in Foster Care (2005)
Other works
Voices: The Stories of Four Troubled Teenagers as Told in Personal Interviews to Beatrice Sparks (1978)
