Acclaimed children’s author Dame Jacqueline Wilson expressed reservations about crafting an adult novel featuring her iconic character, Tracy Beaker, citing concerns that exploring Tracy’s adult life, including her romantic relationships, would feel inappropriate.
Dame Jacqueline has previously revisited Beaker’s adulthood indirectly, portraying her daughter Jess’s perspective in the children’s books My Mum Tracy Beaker and The Beaker Girls.
However, following the recent announcement of Picture Imperfect, an adult sequel to her 1999 children’s novel The Illustrated Mum, it appears unlikely that an adult-focused Tracy Beaker story will be forthcoming.
“I don’t want to go there. That’s my girl [Tracy], who I made everything happen for,” Dame Jacqueline shared with the audience at the Hay Festival.
She further elaborated that she has previously declined such projects, stating, “no, I would never do that,” but acknowledged her openness to changing her mind, adding, “so who knows?”
Dame Jacqueline’s Tracy Beaker series, adapted into a popular BBC television show, follows a young girl navigating life in a children’s home after experiencing neglect and domestic violence.
The author expressed her general enjoyment of revisiting her characters’ lives as adults, stating, “I’ve been thinking about it over the years, because I’ve invented so many different girls, and it’s interesting to think what happens to them when you finish writing about them.”
This sentiment is reflected in her recent adult fiction novel, Think Again, a continuation of her Girls in Love series, which features the return of Ellie, Magda, and Nadine.
The celebrated author, appointed a Dame in 2008, is renowned for her accessible exploration of complex and sensitive topics.
Most of her books, many addressing themes such as suicide, mental health, and divorce, are aimed at children aged seven to twelve.
Her foray into adult fiction has yielded a new sense of fulfillment, she explained.
“I’m an obsessive writer, but I worry people think I’m churning out the same stuff again, so it’s lovely to challenge yourself.”
She expressed her delight in meeting audiences at events, many of whom “read my books as children.”
“The children are still keen, but it’s the mums that get really excited! It’s like a sort of farewell tour that hopefully will go on.”
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Despite her prolific career spanning over 100 books, Dame Jacqueline admitted to persistent anxieties while writing.
“Always about halfway through a book, even now, you think ‘I’ve got the hang of this with all these books that I’ve written’, but I get that terrible doubt and worry about it, and it’s just something you learn. Work through it, get to the end.”
A contributing factor to her writing process is her habit of writing in her pajamas in bed, after tending to her pets in the morning.
“That’s the magic time, and it just works for me. Apparently Michael Morpurgo does exactly the same!”
However, this wasn’t always feasible.
Dame Jacqueline shared, “I was idiotic enough to be married at 19 and had a child at 21.
“My husband wasn’t a terrible man in the slightest, but it was an age [the 1960s] when men went out and did, and women did everything else.”
She expressed her deep love for her daughter, but noted her baby’s two-hour sleep cycles. During those brief periods, she would prioritize writing whenever possible.
She gained more dedicated writing time when her daughter, Emma, started nursery.
“It gave me an urgency. I’d write for two hours and then concentrate on her in the afternoon.”
Currently, the challenges facing writers include the rise of AI. However, Wilson remains unconcerned.
“I take comfort from the fact that my partner’s brother-in-law… asked some AI thing to write a story for his daughter in the style of Jacqueline Wilson, and then he sent it to us. And either I’ve been blissfully unaware and I’ve been writing garbage or…. it was just unbearably awful.”
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