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

[Breakdancing]

My 12 year old has come back from the library with another stack of Jacqueline Wilson books. I've flicked through some & they are mildly inappropriate but are in the young readers section.. I love that she is a bookworm but aibu to be annoyed with her obsession with Jacqueline Wilson?

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.

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!

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

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)

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

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.

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).

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

This

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!!

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).

My daughter loved JW and still does, she’s now 24! Btw, she studied English Literature as her degree and has wide ranging tastes…your daughter should be allowed to read JW to her hearts content..

Crikey, when I was that age I was working my way through my sister's extensive Jackie Collins collection! I also read not only the Flowers In The Attic saga, but most of Virginia Andrews' other books, (themes include sex, incest, violence, miscarriage, abusive parents and more sex). I really would read absolutely anything, no matter how bad. Even now I have a weakness for (good) chick lit, (Marian Keyes is my go to for comfort reading).

@Breakdancingdo you read a lot yourself? My parents were both huge influences on my reading choices when I was your DD's age, because they read constantly and would pass along anything they thought I'd like.

PPs have mentioned Judy Blume and now that I think about it, my mother disapproved of JB so I read her books on the sly. 😅

It's really quite age appropriate...
St her she I was a bug Wilbur Smith fab... totally not appbut my patents didn't know better

I have fat fingers... I was a big Wilbur Smith fan... she's reading.... it's a good thing

They're bloody miserable books, more suitable for older readers.

There's a lifetime of misery ahead, no point in practising for it while you're still a child.

Another one hear who read the flower in the attic books when I was 12.. This thread has made me want to reread to see if they are as bad as I remember.

At least your daughter likes reading, I wish my teens did.

do you think 12 year olds don't know people who are, or aren't themsleves affected by the situations in the books?

I have. They are.

Reading books is proven to help develop empathy -- which is a factor in helping develop children's intelligence. Lots of research on this if you google it. So no I wouldn't mind at all.

I wish that was my worst problem with a tween! She’s reading, embrace it. Bests all the shite on the internet!

not The poster but that could have easily been me… situations like people suffering bulimia, bereavement, body dismorphia… sure as a teenager there were times I didn’t love my body, or had a difficult relationship with food, but reading a little JW helped me realise the beginnings of a serious problem and nip it in the bud, whilst also preparing me for empathising with other people’s issues.

Oh.. just to add.. STEM grad, finance career, well balanced, I think I turned out ok.