Tracey farking beaker - what IS hte fuss about?

[coddy]

higely inferior to the magnificent Clarice Bean www.amazon.co.uk/Clarice-Bean-Thats-Lauren-Child/dp/184121583X/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/203-1293981-14 19128?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1185217686&sr=8-1]
ds1 has read it wiht me reading hte odd chpter
dull dull irritating style

I haven't read to dc for yonks. That is the solution.

i dont have to but i love to

LC verges on upper middle in my eyes

occasionlly I force them to sit and listen to a book I want to read to them.

SOmetimes by the looks on their faces I reckon they are thinking, ponce.

oh clal me moll and what the dad claled?

Can't remember, Red or something?

I like Clarice Bean but dd1 says she would prefer to actually read Ruby Redfort

i find it a bit up itself and self referential to be truly great

apprently the next book will be RR

oh cool

dd1 loves her

DD has loved all the Clarice books even though nothing actually happens in them for pages on end. There are some bits that had us both laughing out loud just because of the way they are narrated.

She said she'd like to read a "Ruby Redfort" too - LC is actually doing one then?? When I read the Ruby bits out to her I ended up doing an American accent which always sounded suspiciously like John Barrowman.

i dont get the facination. my dd was facinated about 4 years ago.

but....whatever....as long as she reads.

I really like Jacqueline Wilson, though I am aware this may change when my dd is old enough to read them and starts to treat Tracy (severely damaged) Beaker as a role model.

I love the 'unreliable narrator' aspect of Wilson - the way it is all uncompromisingly the child's version of events but you read between the lines about what really happened (eg the way Tracy believes her mum is a famous actress, or that it's never her fault when she gets kicked out of foster homes).
Or 'The Bed & Breakfast Star' when she is constantly telling bad jokes and you can just see how irritating that must be for all around her?

I think Turquoise has it about right - the emotional drama queeny side of girls. They love the high emotion.
I was always reading about orphans at that age, but mine were usually Victorian and lived in orphanages or had evil governesses. Same difference, really.

I do agree about Clarice Bean though - brilliant.

Bloody pees me right off, that Jacqueline Wilson. I think she must have a large mortgage to service, cos the rate that tripe emerges from her pen, and gets bought by credulous 8-12 yr olds, she ought to be laughing to the bank. The TV series is a recipe for discord to my mind, a kind of mini-Eastenders in which nobody ever speaks in anything less than a squawk or solves any crisis without bratty behaviour. Bloody hate her. Can you tell?

I should think she paid off her mortgage long ago
Her public lending right money alone would probably buy her several new houses a year, not to mention the sale of all those pencil cases, lockable diaries, etc.

Kathy - actually it wouldn't as each individual writer's PLR is capped at £6k per year! If they didn't do that then the entire pot would go to JW and Catherine Cookson.

Imagine the backlist is what keeps Jacqueline in rings.

That's good to know UQD!
Just as well she still has the pencil cases, then.

Reading Tracy Beaker aged 12 (when it came out) made me want to be a foster parent. I still do at some point. I think her books now are a bit samey and pointless - here's the issue bla bla bla. But I do think the first ones (Tracy Beaker, Suitcase Kid, Cat Mummy etc) are very simply and well written. Agree with everything Kathyis6incheshigh says. Children are obviously going to have different taste to adults (apart from damn HP it seems ).

My fave children's writer now is Philip Ridley. Real characters, magical but real, amazingly well written and plays with language imaginatively. And great illustrations too. Think I would have liked them as a child...