Showing results by author "JACQUELINE WILSON" in All Categories

Dolphin Westward spent her childhood as the supporting character in the story of her beautiful, wild, volatile mother Marigold. Now thirty-three, she’s painfully aware that not much has changed. She lives in a tiny bedsit, works in a tattoo shop by day and collects her illustrated mum from police stations by night. Dol yearns to climb out of the rut she is stuck in, but has no idea where to begin. Could gardener Lee and his daughter Ava be her chance for a wholesome family life? Or maybe a steamy romance with roguish actor Joel is just what she needs.

Hi! I'm Charlie (DON'T call me Charlotte – ever!). History is boring, right? Wrong! The Victorians weren't all deadly dull and drippy. Lottie certainly isn't. She's eleven – like me – but she's left school and has a job as a nursery maid. Her life is really hard, just work work work, but I bet she'd know what to do about my mum's awful boyfriend and his wimpy little son. I bet she wouldn't mess it all up like I do ...

A fantastic stand-alone historical novel in the tradition of Hetty Feather and Wave Me Goodbye, this rich, entertaining novel will delight fans news and old. Mona and her aunt live in a little cottage on the edge of the Somerset estate, where her aunt sews wonderful dresses for the lady of the house. Mona never knew her mother or father, but Aunty has always looked after her - and Mona knows she can always talk to her mum where she lies in the village graveyard.

India lives in a large, luxurious house with a mum she can't stand and a dad she adores, though he hasn't had much time for her recently. She seeks solace in her journal, which she keeps in sincere imitation of her heroine, Anne Frank. Treasure lives on the local council estate with her loving and capable grandmother. She is devoted to her nan but lives in fear of having to go back to live with her mother and violent stepfather. A chance meeting sparks a great friendship between the girls.

Fourteen-year-old Prue and her sister Grace have been educated at home by their controlling, super-strict father all their lives. Forced to wear Mum's odd hand-made garments and forbidden from reading teenage magazines, they know they're very different to 'normal' girls – but when Dad has a stroke and ends up in hospital, unable to move or speak, Prue suddenly discovers what it's like to have a little freedom. Sent to a real school for the first time, Prue struggles to fit in.

I'm Tracy Beaker, the Great Inventor of Extremely Outrageous Dares – and I dare YOU not to say this is the most brilliant story ever! I've bought a big fat purple notebook for writing down all my mega-manic ultra-scary stories in. But especially for my own story. Of how my foster-mum, Cam, has turned out to be a real meanie. No designer clothes, when I really need them. A pokey flat, and a horrible new school. No wonder I keep bunking off ... Still, it will have to do until my real mum comes and gets me. And until then, no-one is going to be better at the Dare Game than me!

Diamond wasn’t always a star. Born to penniless parents who longed for a son, she was a dainty, delicate daughter – and a bitter disappointment. Discovering she has an extraordinary natural gift for acrobatics, Diamond tries to use her talent to earn a few pennies. A mysterious stranger spots her performing on the street, and makes a deal with her father. Diamond is sold and is taken to become an acrobat at Tanglefield’s Travelling Circus.

Tina is a triplet, but she's always been the odd one out. Her sisters, Phil and Maddie, are bigger and stronger and better at just about everything. Luckily they look after teeny-tiny Tina wherever they go--but when the girls start in scary, super-strict Miss Lovejoy's class, they're split up, and Tina has to fend for herself for the first time. Tina is horrified when she's paired up with angry bully Selma, with whom nobody wants to be friends.

April has lots of nicknames: there's April Showers, because she's always crying, and April Fool, because of when her birthday falls. Her worst nickname of all, though, is Dustbin Baby. That reminds her of how she started out in life: abandoned in a rubbish bin. When she turns 14, April decides that she must find out who she really is, where she came from and, most importantly, who her real mother is. There have been lots of people she's called Mum, and now she lives with Marion.

"Where do baby apes sleep? In apricots! I'm Elsa, and that's one of my jokes (I tell LOTS of jokes and I'm going to be a big star one day). I do my best to cheer my family up - but no one seems to laugh much any more. Not since we lost our lovely house and had to move into a bed and breakfast hotel."

Victorian London, 1851. Queen Victoria is on the throne, and the Great Exhibition is about to open! Lucy Locket lives with her father, the New Mother and the New Baby. They sent away her beloved nurse and replaced her with a horrid governess. Lucy desperately wants someone to be kind to her and to have some fun - there's very little of that in her house. Kitty Fisher is a street performer who earns tin for her supper by tumbling. She has always lived on the street and on her wits, with only the kind Gaffer to help her. But now Gaffer is gone, and Kitty is all alone.

Ruby and Garnet are ten-year-old twins. They're identical, and they do everything together, especially since their mother died three years earlier – but they couldn't be more different. Bossy, bouncy, funny Ruby loves to take charge, and is desperate to be a famous actress, while quiet, sensitive, academic Garnet loves nothing more than to curl up with one of her favourite books.

Opal Plumstead might be plain, but she has always been fiercely intelligent. Yet her scholarship and dreams of university are snatched away when her father is sent to prison, and 14-year-old Opal must start work at the Fairy Glen sweet factory to support her family. Opal struggles to get along with the other workers, who think her snobby and stuck-up. But Opal idolises Mrs Roberts, the factory's beautiful, dignified owner, who introduces Opal to the legendary Mrs Pankhurst and her fellow Suffragettes.

You look as if you've seen a ghost!' Jade is so used to living in the shadow of Vicky, her loud, confident best friend, that when a tragic accident occurs, she can hardly believe that Vicky's no longer around. But Vicky's a sparky girl who's not going to let a small thing like being dead stop her from living life to the full! Whether Jade is in lessons, out running or tentatively trying to make new friends, Vicky is determined to make her presence felt ...

On the face of it, Beauty is lucky. She has a mum and dad who love her, lives in a lovely house and goes to a posh girls' school. But for shy, awkward Beauty, the reality is miserable.

She isn't a beauty, and the snobby girls at school have nicknamed her Ugly. Her mum is completely downtrodden by Beauty's fierce-tempered bully of a father. Beauty would give anything for a pet, but her dad won't hear of it in case it messes up their pristine house.

Gemma and Alice were born on the same day and have been devoted best friends ever since. Despite Gemma's larger-than-life personality and Alice's quieter, calmer character, the two are inseparable – until Alice has to move house, all the way to Scotland. Gemma is utterly distraught, particularly at the thought that Alice might find a new best friend. Is there anything Gem's brothers, or perhaps her Grand dad, can do to help?

Tim is thrilled when his parents allow his best friend, Biscuits, to come on holiday to Llanpistyll, Wales, with them. He and Biscuits are having an absolutely brilliant time eating ice cream, having picnics, and making sandcastles ¿ until a deadly, fiendish enemy in the form of the bully Prickle-Head and his sidekick, Pinch-Face, arrive, and things begin to go wrong.

Mandy has been picked on at school for as long as she can remember. That's why she can't believe it when cheeky, full-of-fun Tanya wants to be her friend. Mandy's delighted - but Mum isn't: she thinks Tanya's a bad girl. And when Mandy discovers Tanya's secret, she has to choose between doing what Mum wants and keeping her new friend.

Lots of Jacqueline Wilson's characters are well-known and well-loved by thousands of listeners: Hetty Feather, Ruby and Garnet, Pearl and Jodie, Elsa, Lily and, of course, the brilliant Tracy Beaker! But how much do you know about Jacqueline herself? Jacqueline takes a look back at her own childhood and teenage years in this captivating story of friendships, loneliness, books, family life and much more. She explores her past with the same warmth and lightness of touch that make her novels so special.

The third novel in the phenomenally successful Tracy Beaker series, read by Dani Harmer, star of the acclaimed TV series. Tracy Beaker is back . . . and she's just desperate for a role in her school play. They're performing A Christmas Carol and for one extremely worrying moment, the irrepressible Tracy thinks she might not even get to play one of the unnamed street urchins. But then she is cast in the main role. Can she manage to act grumpy, difficult and sulky enough to play Ebeneezer Scrooge?