Faye Minton
If you were a girl who grew up in the 2000s, you know what I’m talking about when I say Jacqueline Wilson wrote the most brilliant yet chaotic stories. Her books introduced young people to some of life’s hardest topics, in the cleverest and most sensitive way.
We learned about divorce, bullying, death, adoption, puberty, abuse, mental illness, and far more. I think it’s amazing that she could grip us all as she did – but, if we’re being honest, some of her ideas were a bit much.
Here’s a ranking of the Jacqueline Wilson moments that broke my little child-heart most.
5. Jade grieving Vicky in Vicky Angel
After seeing her best friend get hit by a car and pass away, Jade didn’t cope well. She’d been arguing with Vicky right before she died, so she was dealing with a lot of guilt as well as grief.
The entirety of Jade’s mourning process was written so thoughtfully, and in a way children could understand. We essentially grieved alongside Jade, as she saw her friend’s ‘ghost’ everywhere, chatting away and eventually becoming really controlling. At one point, ghost Vicky tries to convince Jade to commit suicide so they can be together again.
As a kid, it was so easy to imagine that I was Jade, losing my best friend. That’s difficult for anyone to come to terms with.
As I got a bit older, I realised that Vicky probably wasn’t a ghost, but just Jade’s imagination as she coped with the loss. In a lot of ways, that hits even harder.
4. Lola Roses’ Mum getting cancer
That family had been through more than enough.
When Lola’s mum won the lottery, she was finally able to run away from her abusive husband with Lola and her brother. They changed their names and tried to rebuild a new life in secret where they couldn’t be found. Her mum even managed to move on, and find a new, younger boyfriend.
Once the lottery winnings ran out, the boyfriend left, and, just when things couldn’t get any worse, her mum found a lump on her breast.
Lola had to try and keep it together, manage the money, and care for her mum and little brother alongside going to school and worrying about her dad tracking them down. Eventually, she reaches out to an aunt and things start looking up, but I still don’t think any child who read Lola Rose was unaffected.
3. Dixie saving Mary in The Diamond Girls
This book might’ve been one of Jacqueline Wilson’s most chaotic – and that’s saying something.
Alongside the main plotline of Dixie’s mum having a baby, lying, and telling everyone it was a boy when it was in fact a girl, we follow Dixie as she befriends Mary. Mary is a girl who plays on the swings in a neighbouring back garden that Dixie often sneaks into.
Dixie soon discovers that Mary is being abused by her mum, despite everything in her life seeming pristine and perfect.
In some of the final scenes, Dixie enters Mary’s back garden and sees her friend in an upstairs window. To escape her mum, Mary leaps out of the window. Dixie runs forward to catch her. Thankfully, Mary is then taken away to live with an aunt and uncle.
This scene probably stuck with me so vividly because it’s so easy to imagine wanting to help your friend like that. But, even though we all like to think we would, not everyone IRL would have the strength or bravery to get involved.
2. The entirety of Dustbin Baby, to be honest
Dustbin Baby follows April, a girl who was abandoned and left in a dustbin behind a restaurant when she was born. Most of the book takes place on her fourteenth birthday. April spends the day ditching school to retrace her past, trying to find her birth mother.
She reunites with her first foster mother, who took her in as a baby, and then visits the grave of her first adoptive mother. When April was a toddler, her adoptive mother committed suicide, and April was moved along once again. Afterwards, April remembers the times she spent in children’s homes, where she was enticed into helping the older kids with crime.
Finally, April goes to the restaurant where she was found as a newborn, and is reunited with the delivery boy who found her. He remembers her and has been eager to talk to her for years. They have an emotional chat and April realises she does mean something to someone, after all.
All the while, April’s foster mother is desperately looking for her, and the stress of it all becomes a lot for young people to read. Although we backed April in her quest for self-discovery, we also felt so sorry for Marion, who only ever wanted what was best for April.
Even despite the stress of its ups and downs, Dustbin Baby was a primary school hit. It was so popular that a televised movie was made. You should re-watch it now on iPlayer. You know you want to.
1. JODIE.
No conversation about Jacqueline Wilson would be complete without mentioning Jodie. None of us were ready for the ending of My Sister Jodie, and I’m pretty sure none of us have recovered yet, either.
The book is told from the perspective of 10-year-old Pearl, who absolutely idolises her big sister. It follows them as their family moves to Melchester College; the girls’ parents are hired at a boarding school, and if they live on-site, they can even receive tuition there.
Jodie’s not happy in the slightest but tries to have fun as and where she can, usually dragging Pearl or the even younger kids into her games.
Almost right at the end of the book, when nobody expects anything like it, Jodie falls from one of the school’s tallest towers and dies. She’d been up there pretending to be a ghost, while everyone else was below, celebrating bonfire night.
She literally fell and died and her whole family just had to watch.
Like… wow.
As a twenty-one-year-old reflecting to compile this list, I have one question. Jacqueline, we love you, but are you okay girl?
Featured image courtesy of Suad Kamardeen on Unsplash. No changes or alterations were made to this image. Image license found here.
Faye Minton
Faye is a former Empoword Editor in Chief and an MA International Journalism student at Swansea University.