Jacqueline Wilson - aren't her books depressing?

[daisie4]

My DD wasn't really interested in reading a book to the end ntil she discovered Jacquline Wilson. No she's read loads, but... aren't they all so depressing full of broken families etc. I'd prefer her to read positive stuff, or at least something that reflects her own life a bit more. Does anyone else have this view?
Does anyone have any suggestions for other authors she might like that I might too?
Am I being utopian?

(My Sister Jodie is pretty bleak, though, IIRC -- partly because the death occurs very near the end of the book. I wouldn't be buying that one for any nine-year-olds myself)

Champagne - you are so correct with that post

The Gemma series that I reccomended is all about a girl who goes to live with her cousins because her mother is essentially too busy to bother with her.............

Fantastic books though and I am gutted I might not be able to get them for my dd

Re Jacquline Wilson I agree her books are similar in many ways and frequently very sad. I wouldnt want my dd to read to many of them tbh

I do own two of them though - Illustrated Mum and Tracey Beaker! mine obviously dd is only 4!

I liked the Gemma books too. There are plenty of copies available second-hand, at least...

Champagne... you wouldn't happen to be JW, would you???

I was a huge fan when I was younger but no way could I have recalled so many details.

Good post!

What dd found after a while with J W was not that the books are too sad, but that they are a little bit repetitive and many of the books are quite similar. Gets a bit hard to keep the heroines apart after a while.

And the thing that she did actually find unrealistic was the complete cluelessness of nearly all adults in her stories- particularly as the girls themselves are often very competent: makes you wonder if they grow clueless when they get older or if it's only the previous generation. It's not just the ones with mental health issues, but virtually all parents are helpless in a way that most adults in RL do not appear to be.

I used to love:

Animal Ark (Non depressing)
Jacqueline Wilson
The Babysitter's Club (Covers some issues, but every book has a happy ending, most are harmless)
Home Farm Twins (I loved anything with twins, again non depressing)
Jess the Border Collie (Last book of this was the first book that ever made me cry, so probably depressing. Maybe more preteen age.)
The Exiles (About 4 sisters, very funny, might not be in print any more. Non depressing.)
Horrible Science/Horrible Histories (Loved these from Y5 upwards.)

I started reading Harry Potter at 11 but then had to wait a year or more for each consecutive book, I probably wouldn't have read books 5+ at that age.

I loved JW as a kid. Havent read anything new though, but I am 26.

oh god - Babysitters Club - ADORED those books.... used to buy one every week with my pocket money.

I hate all the negativity in JW's books and they are all the blardy same. It's OK to have some death / divorce / doom but it's in every single book. In the end, you feel like a freak for having a normal mummy&daddy&2.4kids sort of life.

I also hate Tracey Beaker - she is a cow with no discernable redeeming features.

ok I was a nerdy highbrow kid, but anyway, loved the following at that age: it depends whether your DD likes retro old fashioned things or not. If not, my list is totally useless!

The Wolves of Willoughby Chase
Anne of Green Gables
Narnia!!!
Little Women (very accessible actually, I read the whole 4 books. The values in them, despite being old fashioned, are very very positive and nice)
Malory Towers, Famous Five, St Claires (Enid Blyton is highly toxic though and I think I'd prefer JW)
Anne Fine (Mrs Doubtfire for example)
Roald Dahl, especially the ones with girls as main characters like BFG or Matilda
Family from One End Street (Eve Garnett(?), brilliant, all her books were great.
Mary Poppins (there are several books, they are quite adult, really absorbing, much better than the film)
Anything by E Nesbit
Anything by Noel Streatfeild, you name it, Ballet Shoes, Gemma, Tennis Shoes, Curtain Up, the Painted Garden. However there is some toxicity there, there are always cruel punishments (reflecting NS's own upbringing)
I loved Judy Blume books, as they were true to life and acknowledged negative stuff but in a nice way
Anything by Astrid Lindgren, like Pippi Longstocking, Brothers Lionheart,
Moomin books (quite philosophical and sophisticated, very beautiful books)

Oh gosh I could go on!

ok I was a nerdy highbrow kid, but anyway, loved the following at that age: it depends whether your DD likes retro old fashioned things or not. If not, my list is totally useless!

The Wolves of Willoughby Chase
Anne of Green Gables
Narnia!!!
Little Women (very accessible actually, I read the whole 4 books. The values in them, despite being old fashioned, are very very positive and nice)
Malory Towers, Famous Five, St Claires (Enid Blyton is highly toxic though and I think I'd prefer JW)
Anne Fine (Mrs Doubtfire for example)
Roald Dahl, especially the ones with girls as main characters like BFG or Matilda
Family from One End Street (Eve Garnett(?), brilliant, all her books were great.
Mary Poppins (there are several books, they are quite adult, really absorbing, much better than the film)
Anything by E Nesbit
Anything by Noel Streatfeild, you name it, Ballet Shoes, Gemma, Tennis Shoes, Curtain Up, the Painted Garden. However there is some toxicity there, there are always cruel punishments (reflecting NS's own upbringing)
I loved Judy Blume books, as they were true to life and acknowledged negative stuff but in a nice way
Anything by Astrid Lindgren, like Pippi Longstocking, Brothers Lionheart,
Moomin books (quite philosophical and sophisticated, very beautiful books)

Oh gosh I could go on!

My older dd (aged 8) loves JW - maybe because all the lives depicted are so very different from her own. And the things that are important to the protagonists - basically, parents and friends - are the things that are important to dd, too. And the books tend to have hopeful endings, if not the full "happy ever after" stuff. I don't think JW is depressing.

Sh'e also into Anne of Green Gables, A Little Princess, Noel Streatfield, Anne Fine... Most of the lives in those books are pretty far removed from dd's life, too.

My DD1-9, an avid reader loves JW books and has read most of them at this stage. She is not into the fantasy genre that so much children's literature these days seems to be. Personally, I can't blame her for liking JW as I'm sure I would have loved them at that age too. I always preferred nitty gritty reality fiction to fantasy in my youth, though now I'm more a literary fiction reader when I read fiction.

My 8 and 7yo dds like them, I do too. Even though our household isn't like those depicted we know plenty of families in the situations she describes. And it's useful, to have these scenarios in the books and to be able to discuss them.

My dds like the more depressing stories though, they particularly love tales of orphans being mistreated, classic or modern. My 7yo loves the Wolves of Willoughby chase, and it's the mistreatment of the children she is most interested in. Loads of the classics have "not very nice" stories. A Little princess, Black Beauty, Lassie, and many more all feature rather a lot of death and nastiness, things you could call toxic, and my dds relish it.

My daughter has now moved on from JW to Meg Cabot's Princess Diary. Groan, groan, groan. They're so...pink.

there is an appropriate age for each JW book,
and 9 is too young for many of them.
i think they are fantastic. bitter sweet, i think the op's daugther may possibly have been reading JW for older readers, i.e. meant for over 12s.

Happy children from traditional backgrounds should read books like this, they should realise that not every family is the same as theirs. That's very important imo.

And reading these stories is very reassuring for children whose home life isn't happy, for whatever reason.

Bloody hell, exH gave our 6yo DD a load of cast off JWs from her cousin, I need to get him to take them away don't I, having read this thread?

This will not make me popular, but from what people have said here, they will be wildly inappropriate.

Well, only appropriate for her age. Put them away for a while. My dd is 6 and I don't plant to start reading JW for another 2 yrs.

Has your dd ever come back from school and told you who else's parents aren't together anymore?!! My dd has. IN her whole class of 30 only she "and sasha have no daddy in the house'. She said that matter of factly, but I was surprised that at only 5, she had categorised herself, even briefly without attaching tooo much meaning to it, in to this group. She is a happy and a confident child though.

My 9 yr old dd is reading jw, borrowed from the school library I have my reservations, but actually she's been asking lots of questions. It's been quite interesting and also the one she's reading is the one about the 'blended family' and I had a step father etc so she's been keen to hear about my experiences. She also loves Cathy Cassidy books, there was a set from the Book People recently - I think they're not as 'strong' as the JW's.

Btw, she also read all a set of abridged Shakespear books about 18 months ago and loved them, so it's not inconceivable.

I meant inappropriate in my 2nd post.

Some JWs are perfectly appropriate for the under 10s, I'd say, and others probably not. My dds are reading the ones I'd say were appropriate - not about boyfriends or sex, but they do have children in broken families or struggling with friends or step parents or bullying, that sort of thing (things which do happen to the under 10s).

You just have to keep an eye on which books for which age child. Just as Philip Pullman and Michael Morpurgo and Anne Fine write for a variety of ages.

I used to love books about orphans, the more depressing the better. JW is just a modern spin on that.
I think Tracey Beaker is actually a very well written book - she's an 'unreliable narrator' and the gap between what she tells you and what you surmise is true is handled very deftly. She's so obviously a 'damaged' child and the lying is part of that. Trouble is, on tv she just comes over as a bit stroppy and with loads of attitude and from what I hear children see her as someone to be emulated.... Although I love the book I understand why some parents have a problem with the tv series.

I'm skim-reading clean break first to see if suitable for 6yr old, and I'm glad I didn't start reading it out loud to her.

first up, truth about santa on about page 10. Loads of stuff about mum dressing up pretty to try and hang on to dad.

But now actually I'm thinking ten yo would be better.