12 year old obsessed with Jacqueline Wilson books.. Aibu to think there is better out there?

Has she read the Lemony Snicket books yet? I remember really enjoying those at 12ish, too.

Feeling like I should go read some JW books, I thought they were all aimed at primary age / pre-teen. What sort on content is inappropriate?

What situations? I'm not a fan but curious now.

I live at the south end of the Pennines @Wrongsideofpennines . Which end is the wrong end? 😁

Let her read JW if that’s what she likes! She’s 12 and it’s the school holidays. Malorie Blackman books are a similar style/subject material. I loved those too.

I ended up with an Eng Lit degree so it didn’t do me any harm 😂

Would recommend the Cherub series to her, also quite gritty but perhaps not as inappropriate. Great YA books!

You sound a bit of a book snob...

JW writing about hard hitting, slightly inappropriate topics is what MAKES them interesting for young teens.

She'll start reading something else eventually. But she's reading and she's happy and that's the important thing.

The next phase is Cassandra Clare and Coleen Hoover!!!

When I was 12 I was reading Suedehead and Skinhead, be very grateful 😂😂😂

Sorry just cross posted with your update 😂

Oh god, I'd forgotten about Judy Blume and all the horror books I avidly consumed as a young teen. Totally not appropriate but guess mum thought if she banned them they might only become more attractive.

I grew out of James Herbert and Steven King too.

I loved Jacqueline Wilson at her age. And I will confess I've read a few more she's written since I was an adult. I saw somewhere that she is bringing out an adult novel to follow up on the Girls in Love series.

I think some of the storyline are quite mature but she writes in an age appropriate way. To be honest some books really opened my eyes to some life situations outside my own cosy middle class, nuclear family upbringing. When I started a job working with the public I wasn't quite as blinkered as some colleagues who couldn't even imagine how some people's lives were.

My DD read every JW. Like a previous poster, I had read all of the Flowers in
the Attic so by that measure, JW was almost CBeebies 😂.

DD is now 20, very high achiever, still a bookworm, reads @ 80 books per annum, (and studies STEM , not literature!!) and has had no lasting trauma.

DD also loved Percy Jackson at that age, again a series of books, great stories and based on Greek mythology so some wider learning, if you want to suggest something different for her.

She's reading! Hurrah!

I'd be happy she's reading at all tbh. At that age I was reading Stephen King and Dean Koontz and many other horror writers whose books aren't aimed at children. Mind you the amount of crap they see online nowadays probably makes stuff way less shocking than it used to be🤷

Oh ffs. She’s off school, give the poor girl a break.

Don’t get anyone thinking the content of JW books is inappropriate. Yes she deals with some gritty subjects but why sanitise everything for young teens? She isn’t five. I’d be delighted she was taking such an interest in reading tbh and not obsessed with tiktok and Instagram (where I can guarantee the content is MUCH less appropriate!!)

It's good she's reading. Yes, there are lots of other books but JW isn't a bad choice. She tackles some tricky and upsetting topics ( I had to stop my DD reading JW as it was making her very anxious) but as an author she doesn't patronise her readers. She writes about bereavement, death and flaky parenting quite a lot. If your DD is a young 12 check the storylines.
It's also a phase and she'll find something else. The murder most unladylike series (wells and Wong) might appeal to her.if she hasn't read them yet.

I think her books are a load of tosh, just like the Walliams type writers. I don't really get the appeal (and I was an avid reader, still am) but as pp have said, there are worse things out there in the big bad world.

Let's hope it is a phase and she finds something more interesting and nourishing to read as she gets older. At 13 or so I was very into Sweet Valley High books, and earlier on loved Enid Blyton, but I have progressed...in fact took a literature degree after college 😂I still quite like Blyton - but only when she's edited to get rid of inappropriate names and racism.

I think a lot of YA fiction has storylines you might think were inappropriate. They tend to be 'problem' novels where the characters face various gritty issues. Jacqueline Wilson is very good at writing them and tends to challenge stereotypes in a not-too-obvious way so I think they're fine. When I was 12 YA novels were not really a thing, so I was reading all sorts of way more inappropriate stuff (sci-fi, fantasy and horror mainly, but I remember innocently explaining to my RE teacher how the characters ritualise sex in the Handmaid's Tale...). Whereas at least JW and similar will be framing the content specifically for young readers.

I think it’s a right of passage for bookworm pre-teen girls to have a JW phase!
I was absolutely obsessed with her at that age. I was even a member of her fan club! Honestly in this day and age I’d probably keep encouraging her love of reading and if that means reading JW books then so be it. She will branch out eventually.

Yeah, you are bring a little unreasonable.

I say this because I was like your daughter, at that age, but I was obsessed with Agatha Christie.

To be honest, I'm still like that now. I find an author I like and will read everything they have written; Martina Cole, Patricia Cornwell etc.

Are there better writers? Of course. But that is the great thing about being a reader, you read, you learn, you then find authors who are better.

I can see the similarities to people who watch TV series year after year, Eastenders, Coronation Street, Breaking Bad, Line of Duty etc.

Are there better TV programmes? of course, but if someone is enjoying it, let them be.

Dd1 who is nearly 10 loves the JW books, I just make sure she doesn't read the ones aimed at a slightly older audience. At 12 I read a lot of Judy Blume and borrowed Junk from the library a lot, the one about heroin addiction in teens. 12 year old reading slightly inappropriate books is not new. I think JW writes really well about the topics kids want to read about, that's why she has been a successful author for decades.