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

Please don’t look down your nose at Jacqueline Wilson. One of my English teachers did and it put me off her. (My teacher that is, not Jacqueline Wilson).

Thanks for the tips for where to get the Chalet School books!! I would love love love DD to read them- I just remember finding them so enchanting as a kid!!

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What's wrong with JW books? What am I missing?

Maybe not the later one where the father is nearly lynched because he’s beaten his daughter until she miscarries. (I was glad I was rereading them ahead of DS1 and promptly vetoed that one for an 11 year old).

Try offering her the Suzanne Collins books - not the hunger games ones, there’s a collection of 5 books for slightly younger readers, Gregor the Overlander series. Genuinely brilliant books that I loved as an adult…. Aimed for about 10-13year olds.

also try the book thief… my son read it in year 7… also an incredible book - set in Nazi Germany following a German girl who’s sent to the country and the family she is sent to live with hide a Jewish man in their cellar. It sounds deep, but it’s brilliantly written and great for a transition book away from the “trashy” books you speak of.

although, reading is reading…. And better that than video games all day!

All books are educational. She’s enjoying JW at the moment but she’ll move on soon.

they turn up on ebay as well. If you can get hardbacks or Girls gone by reprints, the paperbacks are horribly cut.

You could always give her a list of banned books to read as well!

I believe A Wrinkle in Time is one of the banned lists too (in America I think)

My friends and I were passing around Mills and Boon books between us at that age, but we turned out alright 🤣🤣🤣

JW has won all the major children's lit prizes. She was Children's Laureate. She writes about real issues, she doesn't patronise, she is a good writer whether it's Hetty Feather or the Illustrated Mum.

Does your daughter go to the library? That will allow her to look at other books & risk trying them. Bet the librarian will suggest others but look at Anne Frank's Diary, Coram Boy, Murder Most Unladylike, The Medusa Project, Leila & the Blue Fox....

But don't diss JW. She's the reason lots of girls read & read & read!

Help her branch out. Ask in Library/bookshop for suggestions on other authors she might like. Even a visit to 2nd hand book shop with a £20 budget as long as not JW. Even google “what to read after JW” / “similar to JW”. (I regularly do this if I like an author and sniff sniff read everything they have published)

As long she knows fiction and what happens is not real life and you are always willing to listen to her if she reads anything that bugs her or finds funny or just anything connected to reading.

Whatever you do don’t use reading as a punishment either forcing to read or removing the ability. Always encourage her to read, listen to audiobooks.

Go to Girls Gone By Publishers (based in Somerset) for reprints of Chalet School titles. Very reasonably priced.

Better than the Flowers in the Attic books that were passed round like contraband when I was your DDs age.

My eldest dd was obsessed with JW books at the same age. Now she's doing a degree in English literature. If your dd enjoys reading now, it doesn't matter what she reads, she'll progress as she gets older.

My DDs were very academic. But they still loved her books, and others in a similar genre. Reading them isn't going to dull your DD's brain. And she'll grow out of the phase soon enough.

I liked some but not all of hers. I'm wondering whether to just buy the Sleepovers sequel, because that was one I did like.

I think as long as she's reading I'd leave her to it, but maybe suggest adding in something different every so often. I used to re-read Home Farm Twins and some Animal Ark in my early teens as comfort reads (it's where I learned about poaching and badger baiting, so they're not all that cosy!).

I read loads of different things now. I'm currently reading Oliver Twist, but before that I read Ballet Shoes.

I read loads of Wilbur Smith and James Clavell at that age for the sexy bits . I am now a senior humanities academic. Let her read what she wants, it won't do her any harm.

Lucky you! I would have done anything to have had my 12 year olds voraciously reading Jacqueline Wilson books. They are wonderful books and brilliantly written.

My mum was similarly appalled by my love of Enid Blyton’s books. Hated them which made them all the more attractive. So while I sympathise and agree about JW, your daughter is reading.

Once I’d done with EB, I moved onto all sorts of authors - some suitable some not. Ursula Le Guin, Susan Cooper, Lynne Reid Banks, Judith Krantz, even the awful Barbara Cartland Mills & Boon books my mother had been given and hated.

Since then I’ve read plenty of classics, crime novels, sci-fi etc. Your daughter will find her next thing when she’s ready. (I also do what others have said, find a new author and read everything they’ve written.)

Could be worse - I was reading my mum's Jackie Collins's at that age! 😆

Malorie Blackman’s books are definitely a notch up from JW, and equally deal with important issues (racism and transgressive inter-racial relationships). MB is a far superior writer; I was furious when a librarian gave my daughter JW— partly for the contrived, gratuitous storylines and partly for lousy writing.

Your daughter might enjoy a sweet book about being a girl in a band, written by Clare Grogan. It's called Tallulah and the Teen Stars. Just a thought.

I adored Jacqueline Wilson, and went on to do a masters in English literature. She's a brilliant children's author.