Five Fun Facts About Jacqueline Wilson
When I was studying children’s literature on my MA, we started with the Victorians and worked our way through selected texts right up to the early twenty-first century. In a seminar called ‘The Nasties,’ our lecturer included Roald Dahl and Jacqueline Wilson. She named these two authors as such because they did not sugar coat the truth in order to ‘protect’ children. Instead, they delighted them with nasty characters such as The Twits, or wrote honest novels which were not predictably about beautiful, middle-class children who always do the right thing.
So, to expand a little more, here are five facts about the much-loved children’s author, Jacquline Wilson.
- She wanted to be a writer ever since she was a small child, and spent much of her time reading and writing stories in exercise books.
- In 2002 she became the most borrowed author in British libraries, replacing Catherine Cookson, who had formerly held the record.
- Her children’s books tackle difficult subjects such as: divorce, foster care, adoption and mental illness.
- Many of her books have been adapted for TV, including: Double Act , The Story of Tracy Beaker, The Illustrated Mum and Girls in Love.
- In 2004 she got divorced after almost 50 years of marriage, and in 2020 publicly revealed that she is gay.
If you’ve never read any of her books, or want to re-read an old favourite, we have several children’s books by Jacqueline Wilson, including: Clean Break, Lola Rose, Double Act and Best Friends.
