Jacqueline Wilson - thoughts?

[whattimeisitrightnow]

Posting in AIBU for traffic and also because there's another thread currently running here that's sort of about her works.
I grew up reading JW obsessively, really loved her work. If I'm honest, I'd probably still enjoy reading some of her books as an adult! However, now that I'm older I'm easily able to identify problems with a lot of them: some of it was my own fault, as I read the ones for teens/mature readers when I was too little for them.

That being said (talked about this on the other thread) there's one book, Love Lessons, based on a student-teacher relationship where said relationship is presented in an almost positive light, in a very romantic way. The female student is pretty much blamed entirely for what happens and is kicked out of the school while the teacher keeps his job. The abuse of power isn't explored at all. Generally, I think JW books really seek to give a voice to children, especially those in extremely difficult situations who might feel particularly powerless, and that's commendable. LL seems to be an exception.

What do people think of JW books? Did you enjoy reading them? Do you think they're too 'dark' for children? Did you even find them helpful at times? (I remember the ones with abusive parents really resonating with me, even before I was old enough to articulate why.) And do you let your own kids read them?

What irks me is that the books are marketed with lovely pink and flowerly 'girly' covers with harmless blurb, when inside it's like an episode of 'Shameless'.
You want to have a good flick through the books before giving them to younger readers. It's fairly hard hitting domestic drama with very gritty themes.

I don’t think of JW as misery lit at all, and “every child” doesn’t have a social worker

Rather, it shows adults as flawed, often fatally so, yet through the child’s eyes we see there are bonds of real love there.

In the Girls series, Ellie’s Dad marries a younger woman who appears to have been an (adult, though young adult) student of his - he is careless and doesn’t pay as much attention to his daughter as he should.

In Lily Alone, Lily’s mother is clearly useless and the children extremely vulnerable, yet through her narrative we can see that’s not important to lily personally. Same with Lola Rose. The mothers are weak and silly but the children love them, because they are the children.

I’m not entirely convinced by Love Lessons though. I don’t think it was written as a subtle story about grooming - it came out around 2005, IIRC. I think it was intended as a love story.

Many of the adults in the stories are to be honest, crap. They are chaotic, selfish, childish, self absorbed and unable to properly love their children. Wilson shows how a child’s love looks beyond that.

@CouscousEvaporator I think the GiL series was trying to demonstrate how self-conscious young women can feel (and are encouraged to feel) about their bodies, hence Ellie constantly fretting over being fat and not as attractive as her slender friends, as a PP said. Those books were also written a while ago, so the values may different, but I don't remember anything encouraging anorexia? I remember the opposite - Ellie has a friend who is horrifically ill and hospitalised as a result, and she herself struggles with it.

I think the only one I read was The Suitcase Kid. We are currently looking for some more grown up chapter books that I can read to my 5 and a half year old daughter (we have read lots of Roald Dahl, Worst Witch, My Naughty Little Sister, Charlottes Web Etc). I hadn’t thought of Jacqueline Wilson. Maybe she’s a bit young if her books are dark?

did anyone watch the tv series of girls in love? it really annoyed me that they cast a tall slim girl as ellie. i actually bought the dvds a few years ago but haven’t got round to watching them yet.

Yes I know it tries to sidle alongside the teenage narrative. I was just quite a happy teen and it dragged me down. Ellies obsession with calories and food diaries made me think of it all in my own life when I hadn’t previously ever bothered.

It had to end with her getting better I guess so there was a moral to the story, but all I ever took away from those books was angst and body negativity.

@otterlielovely Totally agree about how shit some, even most, of the adults were. I recall reading Lily Alone and viewing the mother as being breathtakingly selfish and uncaring, and even thinking that her kids would probably be better off elsewhere. As you say, a child's love looks beyond that. Another example is the mum in 'The Diamond Girls', who has another child despite it being the worst possible timing for her family. Often the poor mothers in her books are single parents, which I found interesting: some of them were unforgivable, but some were doing the best they could in difficult circumstances because the fathers couldn't be bothered. The mum in 'Clean Break' was like that. A bit too wrapped up in her sadness, but very loving and having to take on all the parenting since her selfish twat of a husband cleared off.

@bookmum08
I am in the dark about the historical ones! What age range are the ones about suffragettes and the 1920s aimed at please?
I didnt read them as kids but have read a few of the ones my kids have and quite enjoyed them.

On the theme of trauma in kids books, the darkest and most shocking one was where the mum and I think her baby or young child are found dead. She had a mental illness. Is it 'Goodbye Mr Tom'? We read that to year 5 at school and I didnt know the ending (TA so not my choice) That was very harrowing.

I absolutely loved Jacqueline Wilson. I never got the Harry Potter hype when I was a kid - I used to be so excited every time a new JW came out and I’d devour it all in a day! I’ve still got my copies of almost every book, hopefully one day I’ll have a daughter who wants to read all my falling apart old books 😂

@Oly4 there is an age guide to each book on her website.

@RebeccaPearson Five might be a bit too young. Have you read 'The Secret Garden' with her? Some slightly problematic bits (values dissonance due to the time period it was written in) but otherwise a lovely book.

I hated my daughter reading JW's books. I was furious that a librarian introduced them to her, and she gobbled them up. I didn't mind her reading about traumashe also read and adored Michael Morpurgo, Harry Potter, Judy Blume, Holocaust literaturebut I felt that JW's books were poorly written and exploited trauma in a gratuitious way.

I liked them as a child, I think I liked that there were dysfunctional families. I was an only child to a single parent with no contact with my dad. All my friends had 2 parents. I loved Tracy Beaker, The Bed and Breakfast Star, Bad Girls etc.

I’ve never read Love Lessons so I’m not sure about that. My daughter loved her books too, she’s 13 now so grown out of them but she met JW a couple of years ago 🙂

@CharityRoyall I was the same, but I didn't keep my copies I will live to regret it, I'm sure.

Definitely whattime but the children still adore their dad even though he’s useless. Same with The Suitcase Kid: the parents might love Andy but they are more concerned with their own new relationships.

@amijustparanoidorjuststoned I’m setting up a support group!

It’s interesting that some posters view them as exploitative / gratuitous. I never had that impression of them - I always felt they gave a sensitive and empathetic portrayal of very real difficulties faced by children.

I don’t get this exploiting trauma business.

Yes, I can think of bereavement, mental illness, divorce, the care system, homelessness, domestic violence and neglect, but there’s also friendship issues, bullying, peer pressure, relationships with siblings, relationships with parents, a sort of ‘nobody is perfect’ (Wilson’s early books are worth a read, actually. One is called Nobody’s Perfect.)

I mean, a book with the plot of a person who fuck all happened to wouldn’t be very exciting

@sadie9 I agree, the marketing is pretty dicey. They are very 'friendly looking', especially due to the illustrations. I liked the one series of print editions they did, where it was just the title and maybe some little colourful pictures, rather than a big glossy image. See below: TDG vs Candyfloss.

I think Wilson’s real gift is that she’s able to beautifully show, not tell, which is why adults and children read them on different levels.

@IdblowJonSnow yeah that’s Goodnight, Mr Tom, beautiful book but deeply upsetting.

DD is dyslexic and really struggled to read but thank God for Jaqueline Wilson because the books really engaged her and made her want to read independently. She would have been around 9 by then. I remember reading her the younger ones prior to that but was a bit shocked by Bad Girls and hid it.
I took her to a book signing at Waterstones - we queued for about 3 hours. She still treasures the book and keeps it in a sealed wrapper- she’s 27 now.

One book the girl was being sexually assaulted by the mother's boyfriend. Maybe my DD wouldn't have got that, but it was very thinly disguised.
Another book, some bloke was giving underage girls alcohol at a party and the girl said she liked it because it made her feel all funny and relaxed. There was nothing in the book to suggest that that wasn't a great way to behave. I found it weird.
I complained to my library as all the JW books were in with the Rainbow Fairies and suchlike.

My daughter's both loved Jacqueline Wilson along with many other authors. I think anything that gets children reading is a good thing and I liked that JW didn't present a rosy view of life, so they were a good counterbalance to the more jolly Enid Blyton type of books. My girl's have grown up into happy well balanced young women and they still enjoy reading - in fact, during lockdown they shared a nostalgic re-read together of some old JW faves, which I thought was adorable.