Jacqueline Wilson’s ‘Girls’ series and the message it gives out

[icecreamgirl94]

My 16 year old DSis has chosen to use this series of books for a project she’s doing about the messages sent out in books for teenagers and asked me (27) and DP (31) to read them. These are the main things that stand out to us.

• Nadine is possibly the stupidest girl alive. In the first book she dates a 17 year old who gives her drugs to try and loosen her up for sex. She ditches him but only because she hears that he’s been through loads of girls. In the second book she plans to go to a photography studio alone to have modelling photos taken. In the third book she meets some dodgy guys outside a gig venue and convinced her two friends to come with her and go off with them. They end up locked in a grotty flat with these guys taking drugs and they have to escape out the window. And in the last book she starts chatting to a guy online and goes up to London on her own to meet him where he turns out to be an old perv. She’s only 14, and all of these situations she gets into are just written off as her wild personality.

• In the third book Ellie gets a boyfriend. When they first meet he convinces her to come to the park even though she keeps telling him she’s late home and her parents will be worried. They kiss and he tries to go further but she tells him no. Once they’ve been together a few days he gets annoyed whenever she mentions her friends or wants to spend any time with them, he says he doesn’t know what she sees in them. Over time he continually pressures her to have sex with him, storms off when she tries to finish her conversation with her friends and doesn’t go straight over to him when he meets her from school, steals her original design idea for a competition then tells her she’s overreacting about it, storms off when he sees her talking to a male (gay) friend in the supermarket and basically insinuates that she’s cheating on him, tells her to dress up more for a party, forces her to kiss him when his friends are looking then growls at her not to pull away from him in front of them, and finally she catches him snogging one of her friends at the party so she ends it. She’s 13 btw. But the book ends with her forgiving him and them getting back together!

I’m really not someone who looks for things to be offended about in life generally, but AIBU to think it’s a bit of a dodgy message to send out to young girls that Nadine’s behaviour and Ellie’s relationship is normal? The books are told from Ellie’s point of view and she constantly talks about how wonderful her boyfriend is even though she doesn’t like a lot of what he does. The books are about 20 years old now I believe but DSis tells me most of her friends have read them.

Ally’s World books used to be written for the same sort of age and stage iirc- they were very, very good although might be a bit dated now (all written about 2002/3) . Much less mentions of sex and eating disorders ! Probably out of print now tbh .

@Flipflops85

Nadine is possibly the stupidest girl alive

Despite it being fiction, it’s a girl being groomed. Girls who are groomed are not ‘stupid’ they’re vulnerable children who are groomed.

In the first book she dates a 17 year old who gives her drugs to try and loosen her up for sex

Despite it being a fictional text, let’s correct your statement. She dates a 17 year old who gives her drugs to try and rape her

JW’s books are not going to educate teens to somehow stay safe - that’s victim blaming in itself. They do however provide a fictional example to others about the concept of grooming.

In addition, please don’t fall into the trap that your child is not stupid and will not be groomed. It often happens to children with added vulnerabilities - but ultimately any child can be groomed. None are stupid.

🙄

If you think books like this are damaging, does anyone remember Matilda?! The film where a little girl is neglected by her parents who are also criminals, walks to a library across town by herself at about 4, ends up at a school where the headmistress physically assaults/tortures/swears at the children and threatens to break another teacher’s arm ‘again’, and is eventually adopted by her class teacher because her parents go on the run from the law?

I think you’re being silly in expecting EVERY work of fiction to reflect absolute best practice and a truly healthy outcome in every scenario.

Most YA fiction is concerned with stuff like that because that's what kids that age are thinking about. I read books about drug addiction, teen pregnancy, gangs...all kinds of things. It was understood that these weren't things to aspire to!

A lot of kids are thinking about boys, dating, sex, eating disorders when they're that age - maybe a bit before encountering them for themselves - so it makes sense that they would want to read things they can relate to or that address these things.

They were probably some of the first books for young adults to address online grooming/dating/harassment etc.

They've dated, not least because they don't have smartphones and social media is not a major thing yet.

I was 15 twenty years ago and a girl at school ran away for a few days with a man in his 40s she met in a chatroom.
So it isn't that uncommon - and better to discuss these things with a 13 year old. If parents engage with what their kids are reading then it's a great opportunity to discuss the issues raised, without just lecturing them that it is stupid. The books don't lecture, they let them come to their own conclusion that it was a bad idea.

Many of her books do show quite dysfunctional relationships and scenarios. But it's real life, teenagers do get in situations out of their depth that they are not always sure how to handle and don't want to talk to their parents about it!
Ellie in girls in love doesn't feel so confident in herself compared to her friends and she feels better than she has a relationship and boyfriend.. I think many teens can relate to this.
Love lessons was of a girl who had a abusive father, than when she finally had a little freedom she went wild, the teacher should have known better but again these scenarios do happen, even with the victim blaming at the school in the end, how many posts have we seen on forums the last few days about women when they were younger been blamed for wearing certain clothes or been in the wrong place or acting a certain way.
So the books can be more real life than other books which is always about happy endings.
Also the books were written years ago, and now attitudes are different so sometimes reading them back, they can seem very dated compared to what's acceptable now.

@Wondermule

Where the heck did I say I thought the book was damaging? I don’t think the book is damaging. I think it’s addressing real life. I’m not expecting it to reflect best practice. Not at all.

I’ve read Tracy Beaker with my daughter. It’s absolutely not true to life, but it gives an insight into the emotions of a child in care. No where in my post do I criticise JW, or say her books are not relevant. I think they address real life situations. I was simply saying they don’t prevent grooming - because I don’t think they do.

I did however, want to point out that the girl in the story is not the most stupid girl in the world and it’s not uncommon for girls to be groomed.

It’s also important to point out, even in fictitious situations, that 14 year olds cannot have sex. It is always rape.

In addition JW aims to address real life situations and Roald Dahl writes fantasy, they’re entirely different genres.

My daughter is 13 in July and has been reading JW for three years. I always read the supplies of the book and some reviews before I give it to her and we discuss how it's going as she reads it. Is raised some very good points for discussion throughout every single book and she often comes down asking for my own insight and all " OMG I can't believe somebody would DO that!". So we discuss it and apply it to real life/ laugh about gore silly it off and she can clearly see what the author odd trying to achieve.

She LOVES the books and has read them all. The suffragette one was her favourite followed by the one with the lesbian relationship. I see no harm in her reading these providing we discuss any themes/plots.

[quote Flipflops85]@Wondermule

Where the heck did I say I thought the book was damaging? I don’t think the book is damaging. I think it’s addressing real life. I’m not expecting it to reflect best practice. Not at all.

I’ve read Tracy Beaker with my daughter. It’s absolutely not true to life, but it gives an insight into the emotions of a child in care. No where in my post do I criticise JW, or say her books are not relevant. I think they address real life situations. I was simply saying they don’t prevent grooming - because I don’t think they do.

I did however, want to point out that the girl in the story is not the most stupid girl in the world and it’s not uncommon for girls to be groomed.

It’s also important to point out, even in fictitious situations, that 14 year olds cannot have sex. It is always rape.

In addition JW aims to address real life situations and Roald Dahl writes fantasy, they’re entirely different genres.[/quote]
I agree, this is what I meant by my early comment on victim blaming which you eyebrow raised at, OP. You implied that this character’s experiences happen because she did stupid things, which I think is victim blaming.

I don’t want to watch or read things which have an obvious moral to the plot and I don’t think teenagers do. They are exploring the outcomes of these behaviours in a safe way through characters in a book. Violent games are much more concerning as they need user engagement.

Nearly 50 and remember very well that at 13/14 girls I knew (and me!) were making very poor decisions without any understanding of the risks they were taking. In one case my mother helped a very naive girl from a very religious family as she had no-one to help her when she got into a very difficult situation.

The girl I mention above had had absolutely no sex education or it seems any guidance on how to navigate her teen years. I think any books which help girls anticipate the consequences of these poor choices are really useful.

Jackie Collins books for the rounds at my school Bitch was 😳
Jilly Cooper Riders

Be thankful it’s not 50 shades

Thanks so much for all the comments everyone, some really interesting views and ways of looking at it that I hadn’t even considered, really eye opening.
I also used to watch the TV series and thought it was rubbish, so dumbed down compared to the books.
I thought The Illustrated Mum was a fantastic book too, I think I still have it somewhere. I’ve not read Love Lessons so I can’t comment on that but the subject sounds interesting.
@PferdeMerde of course not, don’t be silly I just thought it was a bit odd that Ellie’s relationship is always treated as normal and she gets back with him even though he treats her like shit, but as previous posters have pointed out, if you tell teenagers something is wrong they’ll want to do it even more, leaving them to realise it’s wrong for themselves was the intention here and I can totally see that now.
@Flipflops85 thank you for correcting what I said about Nadine being drugged, writing it like I did was exactly my point, it’s never addressed for being nearly as serious as it was.
Sorry if referring to Nadine as stupid has offended anyone, as has been mentioned I can see that she’s written as an extreme case to show her behaviour is dangerous. I do stand by what I said though, it isn’t sensible behaviour to meet someone from online that you don’t know anything about and have no real information on.
Thanks everyone for such constructive comments, much appreciated.

@Camomila

I loved all the Jacqueline Wilson books as a DC - even when I first read the 'girls' series as a tween I could tell there was a 'message' behind it and the girls were making bad decisions.

As someone who grew up on an estate I liked the JW books because they were a lot more 'representative' of what I saw in friends/neighbours real lives than the boarding school stories I also loved reading.

Not the point of the thread but 'The Illustrated mum' is still one of my favourite books (one for older DC though, the mum has a breakdown and the girls end up in care).

Yes The Illustrated Mum was very well done. I remember being horrified when she paints herself white and it’s stuck with me even now. At that age I didn’t really have much awareness of mental illness or the idea that other children like me might be dealing with unwell parents in that way, it was really eye opening. That was another thing I liked about JW, she shared perspectives and lives that her readers might not be aware of, her books taught me a lot about empathy and the fact you never really know what is going on behind the scenes in someone’s life.