Jacqueline Wilson
- Name: Jacqueline Wilson
- Date of Birth: 17th December 1945
- Place of Birth: Bath, Somerset
- Star Sign: Sagitarius
- Featured Title: Candyfloss
- First Book Published: Double Act (1995)
- Website: Click to here visit
- Fan club: Click to here visit
- See all titles from Jacqueline
12 year-old Lucy Howlett spoke to the best-selling author, Jacqueline Wilson, to find out why the sharing of books should be an important part of growing up...
What are you hoping to achieve with your Great Books to Read Aloud campaign?
To get parents to find the time to read to their kids. To snuggle up near bedtime and read to them.
Were you read to aloud as a child? Which books do you remember the most?
I was read to a little, when I was six and fell ill for a long time with measles, the flu and then whooping cough, all in a row. I was read a strange mixture. First when I was six, The Faraway Tree by Enid Blyton, then a Charles Dickens, and also my dad read me cartoons out of the newspapers about a girl who had a half-squirrel, half-bunny!
Did you read aloud to your own daughter? Which books did you enjoy reading out loud?
I did read aloud to my daughter. My favourite book to read aloud was "Where the Wild Things Are." It?s such a good book isn't it? I particularly liked "roaring the great roars" - they were great fun.
Which children's authors do you most admire?
It?s hard to pick a favourite author because I?m friends with lots of them. If I choose some and not others, they stand there with their hands on their hips, asking, "Why didn't you choose me?" I do, however, particularly admire Louisa M. Alcott, who wrote Little Women and Maurice Sendak, who wrote Where the Wild things Are.
What would you suggest to a parent who can?t find the time to read to their children?
Well, wouldn't you find the time to cook your children tea or find them clean clothes in the morning? Ten minutes at bedtime is all it takes.
What do you think of books on tape for children?
They are good but it?s not as good as snuggling up and having a giggle over the jokes or having someone to hold your hand in the scary bits.
Do you think illustrations are important for children's books?
Yes, I asked for lots of illustrations in my books so even people who can?t read could follow the story if it was being read to them.
Which of your own books would you recommend to read out loud?
Tracy Beaker is good because it's not as personal and close as some of the others, which are better read by yourself.
Do you think reading for pleasure should be part of the school curriculum?
Yes. We didn't have it on our curriculum but then we didn't really have one. Our teachers just taught us what they wanted. If we were good then our teacher would let us do silent reading.
Do you have any books you would recommend particularly to boys who don't like books?
Anthony Horowitz is good, and also Philip Pullman, I think.
Are you enjoying your role as Children?s Laureate?
Yes, but it's hard work doing interviews and things all the time.
What is the message you most want to get across as Children's Laureate?
That reading is just as fun as TV and computer games. I?m not saying more fun, but just as fun...
Jacqueline Wilson was born in Bath in 1945 and spent her childhood in Kingston-on-Thames, where she still lives today as a full-time writer. She was educated at Coombe Girls School, Surrey, relocating to Dundee to start work as a teenage journalist with D C Thomson, writing for Jackie teenage magazine, which was named after her.
Jacqueline Wilson has written readers and books for younger children as well as radio plays for the BBC. Her series of books for older readers, Girls in Love (1997), Girls Under Pressure (1998), Girls Out Late (1999), and Girls in Tears (2002) has recently been made into a thirteen-part television series, broadcast on ITV.
She wrote her own screen adaptation of Double Act for Channel 4, which won the Royal TV Society Best Children's Fiction Award, and The Story of Tracy Beaker is in its second television series, the third to be broadcast in 2004. In 2002, Jacqueline Wilson was awarded an OBE for services to literacy in schools, and in 2005, became the Children's Laureate.
