Vicky Angel - Jacqueline Wilson

We were just picking the teams for football. Away on a family and friends weekend there should have been plenty of people to choose from. We had Conor, Kieran, Dominic, Olivia, Marnie and four volunteer adults but suddenly all the other grown-ups had found various but incredibly pressing tasks – unpacking, cooking, that sort of thing. Swines. We were one short for five-a-side. “Where’s my sister?” shouted Dominic. He was quite right, we were a child missing. Sophie usually likes football so I went to look. I found her hidden in a corner of one of the caravans, reading. “I can’t come yet,” she said, “I ...  Read the complete review

My children have several Jacqueline Wilson books. My eldest three (aged 12 ½, 11 and 10) are all fans of hers. So today, when I had the urge to read a whole book in a couple of hours, I picked up one called Vicky Angel and read it. The story begins happily enough, focusing on Jade Marshall and Vicky Waters, two Year nine girls who are best friends and have been since nursery school. Then, all of a sudden, there is an accident, a car crash, and Vicky dies. (This isn’t really giving anything away, as the title and cover make this fairly obvious!) The rest of the book is about Jade coping with the grief of losing Vicky. However, this is written in an ...  Read the complete review

Jacqueline Wilson's books tend to cover difficult issues and Vicky Angel is no exception. Vicky and her best friend Jade are messing around when Vicky runs out onto the road gets hit by a car and dies. Jade struggles to cope with Vicky's death and begins to see her ghost. For a while this suits Jade and she continues on in her life happy that she still has her best friend with her. After a while Vicky's ghost starts to stop Jade from making new friends and Jade becomes very anxious. One of Jade's teachers realises that there is a problem and organises counselling to help Jade get over the loss of her friend and control the ghost. The whole way through the book Jade ...  Read the complete review

Vicky Angel is a book that deals with death. That's not something I expect to see much in books targeted, as this is, at eight to eleven year old girls, especially not in books that aren't specifically marked for counselling or something. The story centres around Jade, a little girl whose best friend is called Vicky. They're walking home from school one day, and Vicky is teasing Jade, and then there's a car and... well, I don't really need to draw you a picture, do I? The rest of the book is about how Jade tries to deal with that. It handles it very well, showing Jade's depression, the way that Vicky's parents can't quite deal with her being alive, ...  Read the complete review

Why am i crying? was the question I asked myself repeatedly whilst reading this book. Ok ok i cried. Happy? In fact i cried solid for the first hundred pages. I had to constantly remind myself [in between earth shaking sobs] that is was only a book. But it seemed to be written so.... Knowingly for want of a better word. Jaqueline Wilson is a highly regarded writer of a wide range of books for many different age groups. Her knack for writing good books has claimed her prizes such as Childrens Book of the Year and the Childrens Fiction award. Her writing is destinctive in that it talks about emotional issues that occur today like divorce death and foster care.Her ...  Read the complete review