Jacqueline Wilson - Children's author HARDtalk

States. We go to HARDtalk now.

Over the past ten years Jacqueline Wilson has been the most borrowed

author from British libraries. She has sold 30 million of her books in

the UK and written nearly 100 of them. They almost always focus on a

young girl in a difficult family usually being brought up single-

handedly by her mother, sometimes with an abusive stepfather and

often with drink and drugs. Why does she draw on such bleak

Jacqueline Wilson, welcome to HARDtalk. Why are you were

attracted to situations, plot lines that are so difficult in a way?

don't think all of my book mights reflect this bleak approach but

some do. -- my books. I have always been attracted to outsiders and I

like writing about sad little moppets. It gives me something to

write about and hopefully it is my readers something to think, if my

mum went off, if I were a Victorian orphan, this is the way it would

feel. Typically they are set in a modern day. I wonder what it is -

your character is an abandoned girl in a children's homes. What is it

about her that attracts you are typically young reader? Basically

with Tracy she is naughty. She has had a tough time and like other

kids in care, she doesn't withdraw into herself, she is furious. If

you hear her a ranting, I'm sure other mothers think there she is

again! Children understand why she feels so strongly. I have met a lot

of real life people like her and I think she has got a lot going for

her but I think she needs to be understood. A lot of girls get in

contact with you when they can relate? They do. I get

correspondence and most are from perfectly ordinary children who say,

I want to be famous liked you, please send me your latest book but

there are touching stories as well. I am particularly thrilled when I

get e-mails from kids in care. Tracey has kind of raised their

status. At school children will say you have been in care like Tracey?

It makes them feel more special. Often I get letters from children

whose parents have split up, have got an ill. If they think I know

how they are feeling it makes them feel they have a friend they can

confide in. Do use their stories to perhaps inspire your next book?

I do not like to do that. I think it would be very difficult

territory if I did. Children confide in me. They don't often say

don't tell anyone but that is implicit in what they are saying.

They do, the language they use, it keeps me in touch with the way the

average 9-10-year-old Finks. -- thinks. Often it is the first time

they have come across situations such as parents drinking. Do you

wonder about the effect you're having? Of course I wonder.

Certainly there are some books that deal with the issues you have

mentioned and I think children are very much aware that these things

happen. Often children watch television soap operas and all

sorts of lurid story lines happened and they absorb things. I don't

think I am telling them anything new. What I do try to do is show

what it is like to be a child in this situation. I try very hard to

be careful and responsible and not actually write anything too

upsetting, too troubling. There have been a couple of sinister

parents, worrying people but I don't go into graphic detail. Apart

from one book, I have always had happy and reassuring endings.

of your stories do broach difficult territory. I could pick up any

number of them. "We were better off without Dad and then mum met Mac

and he does smack mum and me." You have a 14-year-old girl who kisses

her married school teacher... was very dangerous territory. It

came about because I was on a radio programme and I was asked if there

are subject you feel you can't deal with? They had just been a case in

the newspapers of a teacher getting involved with a student. I said

that I think that would be totally forbidden territory, too difficult

and controversial. My then editor at the time said, "We have just

asked around the office and this is a common fantasy of teenage girls

and why don't you go for it?" obviously you don't want a child

reader to think that I am a proofing of having any kind of

relationship, even a crash on a married teacher. What I did these

have a specific girl who had been homes cold and was lonely and

unhappy. -- home schooled. She and her art teacher got close, I

wouldn't go further than that. I have had many letters from teenage

girls and they often say why didn't they have a proper affair? There

should be one book for the teenage girl about an affair with the

teacher and a proper and sensible version for everybody else. I am

truly responsible in that I don't want, ever, to write anything that

would encourage some young girl to think that this is OK, Jacqueline

Wilson says it is OK. The fact that you had not written about this

before, presumably because you are aware of what you write

influencing... I am aware of the influence in. I first realised this

when I had written a book about identical twin girls. I saw a lot

of children and was standing in a queue in a cafe and two girls in

front of me, two very different looking girls talking as if they

were twin sisters. I was quite interested. One of them said

"Rebbie, you are so bossy!" the other said "You are silly). They

said it is a great book. I wrote to. They were very sweet about it. It

made me realise that they had taken on board the characters, were

acting them out, had actually put their hair into Platz, an old-

fashioned hairstyle I am fond of and I thought this is a way I can

benignly influence girls to play things out. It made me realise you

have to be extremely careful. I would never, as far as I am aware,

I wouldn't have a child sort of playing some game like crossing the

road in front of traffic as a dare, something like that. Just in case

any child ever picked up on that. In another book I think this was at

a time when glue-sniffing was prevalent, I was going to have a

minor character doing this, showing what a silly and dangerous thing it

was. I thought about it and said no, if I am introducing that to one

child, you can't do that. You will know, you have been criticised, let

me quote you"I would go so far as to say, it accounts for a good deal

of the tension in otherwise stable and middle class homes close work.

She suggested that what children are picking up, they are perhaps

going out and acting in their own perhaps stable homes. She is

allowed to have her own opinion however I am the one who gets over

1000 e-mails most weeks and lots of letters plus many, many school

letters. I think mostly children understand entirely that these are

specific stories that I am writing about and most of the children that

right to me come from happy, secure backgrounds and are very pleased

that they do come from this kind of background. They like reading about

children going through an extreme time just as, I don't know, don't

get me wrong, the fun of reading Dickens is reading about orphaned

children, put upon children and see how they cope, how they manage.

am going to. You now. You wrote in 2008, you read in the Guardian, in

today's society children are growing up too quickly. They don't

have the maturity to engage with ideas. Yes. What I am doing in my

books is reflecting my different characters and how they feel and

what they do. In real life, look at me - I am more of a generation

where children were bought up strip be. Sometimes when I look at girls

in year five, you six, they have a school day, can wear their own

They would wear slightly inappropriate clothes. I would

complement them and say they look wonderful if I was meeting them. I

would say it is a shame they were not aware liberty smocks and

clubbers angles -- sandals. Sometimes the mother is jester.

Benny had the younger Chad who is much more from be. What does the

child reading it want to be like? - she went to dress like the one...

don't think the children want to be the characters in my books. I think

they feel sorry for them or emotionally engaged with them. But

my characters are not aspirational characters. I'd never tried to deal

that. Again thing in children but Mark -- children's books should do

that. What I am saying is, this is the way my imaginary characters

behave and this is what happens to them. I tried a delay in a way

which is entertaining. If he were to ask a class of children who have

read my books to define them in one word, it would not be shocking and

it would not be contemporary. I would think it would be funny. I do

not set out to be funny books but they always have humour within them.

Often, when children are asked to define books in their different

genres, it is funny. Children involved in my books to laugh at

the things that happen. It is a little adventure for them. Then

they get to the end and they find everything is all right. Then

children read and re-read. language is realistic. But in being

realistic you are using language that might be the first time a

young girl is exposed to it. never use a real swear words. There

was controversy wants over one particular word which has now been

changed. I never use conventional four letter words. I do not use

that language myself. Forgive me for interrupting. It is not just

the language. It is the whole aggression behind some of the

things. Way the one character, she is a middle class little girl in a

home where the father is a builder but a bully. He has a daughter that

he wanted to call beauty. But she is a plane and solemn little girl.

She is sent to a private girls' school. She is teased and she does

not really fit in. Some of the time, the dad is fine. But other times he

is paid for. He undermines Hannah and her mother. -- her. Then when

he does a dreadful thing, the mother and the charred have the

strength to get out of the situation. Then maybe things picked

up in the answering back. What are our children learning from this?

What you can learn from my books, if you want to learn things from

children's stories, his compassion. Are they not also picking up the

start of language? When I listen to children, I think my children often,

are simply reflecting the way children talk to their parents. I

feel sorry for parents. When people are kind enough to stand in long

queues to sign the books, I think they are quite wonderful to give up

several hours to do these. Then, in front of me, a child will want me

to sign the book. Every child wants a photograph taken with the mobile

phones. We are smiling together. Then the parents cannot work the

mobile phone and the parents are really horrible. They are informing

you, rather you informing them. would have never spoke to my father

like that. You have written about your teenage years. The transcribed

from your diary aged around 14. That was brave of me. There were

not very well written. I was very intense. You have proven to

yourself now. After 100 books. hope I have. It feels like I have.

It is still very odd. I wanted to be a writer for so long. Then I got

published but I had about 20 years were very few people had ever heard

of me. Therefore when people are interested now and they have heard

of me and when children recognise me, it is always a slight surprise

and a delight. Still? Still, yes. For so long, I did not think that

would happen. It is very strange indeed. It is a huge privilege.

that why you still writes so much? Not at all. I write because I am

obsessive. It is the way I had always thought. Since I was six, I

would make up stories in my head. Friends and family tell me to calm

down. They tell me to put my feet up and enjoy myself. I do not think

I can. It is the first think I think about when I wake up in the

morning. I always write for an hour. Sometimes I cannot sleep at night

because I'm thinking about my story. It is a huge part of me. I like

doing it. And so the brain switches off altogether, I am just going to

carry on. You are the most borrowed author from British libraries in

this century. Libraries are under pressure now due to cuts. You are

involved in campaigns in trying to help them. Alan Bennett gave a

wonderful talk. If he cannot win them over, who can? The reason is

we probably do not need libraries anymore. I can see his point of

view. Paperbacks are quite expensive. I know you can go on the

internet and by a cheaper copies. But I think libraries ice and

tradition are so important. It would be wonderful to have this

cultural centre for each small town. They are not caught will centres

anymore. It is people going on the internet in the library. I live

quite close to my local library. The very library I went to when I

was a charge. The very elegant part of the building is the children

section. It has been taken over by computers. But still, I would still

fight for libraries. They vary enormously. I have travelled the

country giving talks and libraries. And librarians care passionately

about books, especially about the children who would not normally be

reading a book. There are still many families where there are no

books in the House. Or if they visit on the school, it helps

children realise books are not boring. Stories can be fine and

there could be one book which reflects a child. There have been

campaigns in getting children reading and I had been phenomenally

successful. You have had a huge impact on children's reading. I

wonder if libraries are really making that difference and it the

money could be spent more effectively?. If he instil a love

of reading and variety into children, there is your chance with

don't you try this? Does it ever wind you up that people recognise

you as hugely successful and a brilliant author, you are not

really regarded as a literary one. I wish I was. But you cannot

control this. All that matters to me is that I please children. I

tried to write the best stories I can. Eight girls in my books are

always bookworms. They are often told by some caring parent or