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Valeria Tapia Cruz

Professor Andrea Casals

Seminar

03 October 2014

Theoretical Framework

Since the publication of her first book, The Story of Tracy Beaker in 1991,

Jacqueline Wilson has become one of the most acclaimed authors of Childrens literature.

For this reason, it is not a surprise to hear young kids, especially girls that they consider one

or more of her books their favorites. Jacqueline Wilsons fame has reached such an apogee

that she has sold over 30 million copies of her books in the UK alone and recently her

books have been translated into different languages, making her one of the most popular

writers of the 21st century. Taking these facts into consideration, it becomes very peculiar

that not a lot of research has been carried out about the literature of this author in particular.

This can be proved by the fact that only one or two papers can be found that deal with the

analysis of Jacqueline Wilsons narrative. The insufficiency of study on this topic is the

main motivation behind this investigation, whose main purpose is to determine if

Jacqueline Wilsons books, Girls in Love, Girls Under Pressure and Girls in Tears, which

are known for dealing with difficult topics such as lack of self esteem, internet pedophilia

or eating disorders, may help young female readers to deal with those situations in a real

life context Hence, the idea is to prove how the Girls collection and their characters could

serve as guidelines for girls to overcome these difficult experiences on their everyday lives.
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In order to perform this investigation, the first step to follow would be to find theory

of renowned scholars who have dealt with a similar research on their own in the past. As it

was mentioned previously, based on the research that was carried out prior to the beginning

of this study, nothing has been written before about this subject in particular. However,

there is one article by Kay Waddilove, candidate to a PhD in Childrens Literature, who

writes about the success of Jacqueline Wilsons books and attempts to give an explanation

to her popularity and widespread acceptance between young readers. About this, an

interesting idea that Waddilove states is that the basis of her appeal is her accessibility,

which is linked to her narrative voice, her use of humor and her determination to tackle

issues childrens care about (2). Thus, based on this statement, one key idea is made clear,

that Jacqueline Wilsons books indeed deal with a certain problematic that children have to

struggle with in reality. Moreover, she even goes further to claim the manner in which

Jacqueline Wilsons books aid readers: help to gently open [the readers] minds, to such

problems and if they are affected directly to hold out a metaphorical hand and reflect the

situations, anxieties and issues theyre facing in an imaginative way (3). As it can be seen

here, there is preceding evidence of a scholar who agrees on the idea that Jacqueline

Wilsons books are certainly helpful.

A starting point in order to understand this idea of books being written specifically

to help readers in a better way is to become acquainted with the notion of Problem

Novels. According to scholar, Kimberley Reynolds these texts are specifically designed

to help adolescent readers understand and manage the physical, emotional, and social

changes they are likely to experience during this time in their lives (68). As a matter of

fact, she claims that these books tend to focus on specific aspects of young peoples lives

and interests, whether these are personal (family, love, friendship, sexuality), as well as
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public victimization and bullying. Moreover, she claims that YA novels acknowledge that

family life can be fraught, that school is often a place where kids are hardly humiliated and

that kids would give anything, even their lives, for the sake of becoming popular and reach

a certain status in society. Friendship, bullying and peer pressure are exactly the topics that

Jacqueline Wilsons Girls books deal with, for example when displaying the close

relationship between Ellie and her best friends Nadine and Magda throughout the whole

series, or the fact that Ellie feels forced to go on extreme diets after she has been called too

fat at a modeling audition during one section of Girls Under Pressure. Examples such as

going on extreme diets because of social pressure to look a certain way can be considered a

typical manner of self harm by teenagers, and indeed this concept of hurting one self is a

topic that has been widely discussed by experts in Childrens Literature, such as Kimberley

Reynolds herself. Thus, in Chapter 5 of her book Radical Childrens Literature: Self-

harm, Silence, and Survival, she asserts: childrens literature that deals with hopelessness

and specifically with the response to it known as self-harming is a relatively recent trend

(88). Moreover, she quotes reformed self-harmer turned journalist Nick Johnstone to add

that libraries may be a good place for readers to start breaking the habit of self harming,

find out why they are doing it, how you can stop, and learn new ways to cope.

Further along in the same chapter Reynolds refers to one of the oldest and most

active debates among those involved in childrens literature and this has to do with the

material and topics which are appropriate for childrens to read. In this way, she traces the

argument back to the XIX Century where many critics regarded fantasies, fairy tales and

short stories as the wrong type of stories because they could prevent children from

growing up to be rational, capable adults , to recent years in she quotes Natov (2003) to

mention that nowadays critics argue that books should always end on a positive note, and
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must not leave children in despair (89). Yet, she does not support this perspective and

makes reference to Kidd to make a point about the positive aspect of the hopelessness in

Childrens literature in the sense that by making it possible for children to encounter such

emotions and situations on the page, these works are not only reshaping childrens

literature, but also creating opportunities for young people to gain insights into themselves

and those around them that may have positive long-term social and emotional benefits

(90). Thus, she reinforces this idea that although the topics depicted in childrens literature

nowadays may be rough and shocking, they actually have a positive impact on readers in

the sense that they can learn from them, rather than negative consequences.

Another interesting aspect to take into consideration regarding how literature can

affect coping behavior has to do with a rather new concept used in education known as

Bibliotherapy. Elementary educator and member of the Elementary Education department

at the State University of New York, Danielle F. Lowe, in her article Helping Children

Cope through Literature, defines bibliotherapy as therapeutic reading which helps children

deal and cope with their emotions(2). Moreover, this idea has to do with the fact that

books serve as aid for children in the sense that often the reader is looking for a solution to

his/her own personal life situation and feel more at ease when learning that he/she is not the

only one dealing with a life crisis (2). Based on what has just been mentioned, Lowes

statements serve as another source of evidence, this time from an educational perspective

and not from a literary perspective, to prove that books do serve as models that young

readers can follow and apply to their own struggles in order to find a solution to them.
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Based on everything that has been stated above it would be easy to draw the

conclusion that the thesis statement presented in this investigation is undoubtedly correct

and that nothing else needs to be done. However, in order to give a contrast from another

point of view, it is important to include a counterargument that shows someone who is

against Jacqueline Wilsons books. Finding an article that criticizes Wilsons narrative is

hard to find, yet there is one by BBC radio presenter, Winifred Robinson published in 2008

by the Daily Mail in the UK. What is interesting about this article in particular is that she

blames Jacqueline Wilsons narrative for the loss of innocence of children. Some of the

arguments that she provides to support her statement are for example based on her sons

Tonys outbursts and her connection of his dramatic attitudes when he expresses that no one

likes him or that is the worst day of his life to passages of Jacqueline Wilsons books.

Moreover, Robinson refutes Wilsons quote [presented above] that [her] role as a writer is

to hold out a metaphorical hand to these children, and to reflect the difficulties they face in

an imaginative way", by stating that she doubts that any young child really needs to

explore at length the nitty-gritty of redundancy, bereavement and divorce (4). She claims

to understand specialists books might be useful for kids dealing with these topics, but in the

case of Wilson what her books do is to opens the door to experiences from which they

should be protected for as long as possible - precisely so that childhood innocence can be

preserved rather than overshadowed by too much sophisticated knowledge, presented too

early and little understood (4).


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Robinson acknowledges the idea that literature for children has dealt with difficult

topics for centuries, but according to her the difference is that those difficult situations,

such as the case of Hansel and Gretel who are left motherless and then abandoned by their

stepmother, is that those stories took place in fantasy worlds which bore scant relation to

their own; worlds where houses are made of gingerbread and where hungry wolves can and

choose to dress up in women's clothes. Where fear can be experienced safely (5). On the

other hand, the problem with realistic settings today is that the horrors are more real too, so

there is not a way for kids to escape from these fearful situations as it is harder for them to

distance themselves from what they read under the excuse that what they are reading is a

product of fantasy and has nothing to do with reality.

In the essay previously mentioned by Kay Waddilove, she refers to Robinsons

criticism towards Jacqueline Wilsons books, and she undertakes the task of defending her.

She does this by quoting Julia Eccleshare who states: adult disapproval of Jacqueline

Wilson is rooted in unwillingness to accept that childhood isnt necessarily ideal (4). In

other words, according to Waddilove, what children need is not to see an ideal depiction of

childhood, but what they really want and appreciate is to see childhood depicted as it is,

with its good and bad aspects. In this way children do like to read lots of things that

have a very strong emotional content. They like to be caught up in things as much as adults

do. (4).

Although the evidence provided might be highly relevant to support the thesis

statement mentioned above about how Jacqueline Wilsons Girls collection might work as

guidelines for readers to manage their own personal issues, a more effective way to prove is

point is by collecting the opinions of actual readers of the books. For this reason, this

research is going to be partly based on a survey carried out to young readers who have read
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the books included as part of the literary corpus in order to get their real impressions and

opinions about the book. The survey is going to consist on a questionnaire of 5 questions

with the purpose of collecting the opinions that the readers had about the books in order to

prove if they thought they were useful for them in their struggles or not. The survey

sampling will consist of a group of 4 young girls, between the ages of 12-15, 3 of them are

native speakers (2 from the UK, 1 from Canada), whereas 1 of them is a Chilean girl,

proficient in both English and Spanish. The reason for the selection of this group of people

in particular has to do with the intention of discovering if the nationality of the readers

makes any difference in the interpretation that they have of each book. This idea is related

to the notion of reader-response criticism proposed by authors such as Lois Tyson in

Critical Theory Today: A friendly Guide, who claims that since readers actively make

meaning [this] suggests that different readers may read the same text quite differently

(170). Moreover, he states that reader-response theorists believe that even a rereading of the

same book by a reader in different occasions will produce different meanings because the

experiences lived in between the two readers will affect the interpretation. Based on this

idea, the experience of growing up in different countries, with different values and different

beliefs may change the interpretation that young readers have of the book. My point of

view is that Jacqueline Wilsons books deals with problems that are so universal that every

reader will reach the same ultimate conclusions and impressions about these issues. Yet,

this needs to be proved by real and strong evidence to make this investigation more serious

and trustworthy.
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Works Cited

Eccleshare, Julia "Teenage Fiction: Realism, romances, contemporary problem novels". In


Peter Hunt, ed.. International Companion Encyclopedia of Children's Literature. London:
Routledge,1996, pp. 387396.

Lowe, D.F., 2009. Helping children cope through literature. Forum on Public Policy.
http://forumonpublicpolicy.com/spring09papers/archivespr09/lowe.pdf.

Reynolds, Kimberley, Childrens Literature Between the Covers (Frederick, MD:


|Recorded Books, 2011) Print.

Reynolds, Kimberley. Radical children's literature: future visions and aesthetic


transformations in juvenile fiction. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007 Chapters 4-7.
Print.

Robinson, Winifred. "THE VERY HYPOCRITICAL Ms WILSON; Controversy: Jacqueline


Wilson." Daily Mail [London] 5 Mar. 2008: Online Version. Print <
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-526369/The-hypocritical-Ms-Wilson-Why-
childrens-writers-hugely-blame-loss-innocence.html#ixzz3BiPGzdFX>.

Tyson, Lois. Critical theory today: a user-friendly guide. New York: Garland Pub., 1999.
Print.

Waddilove, Kay. "So good, its exhilarating: The Jacqueline Wilson Phenomenon."
Bookbird: A Journal of International Children's Literature 50.3 (2012): 75-78. Print.
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