My eldest daughter (8) is very keen on Jacqueline Wilson, having now cast aside poor old Enid Blyton as too babyish (sob). I think JW is a fantastic writer who can tune right in to girls' minds, and totally deserves her enormous adoring fanbase BUT since discovering her books, I feel my daughter's head has been clouded with a whole new load of Issues: divorce, bullying, homelessness, domestic violence, foster homes, shoplifting... a far cry from smugglers, ginger beer and midnight feasts. She spent her Christmas book token on two new JWs and was reading one of them, The Diamond Girls, in the kitchen yesterday. "Mum," she said, as I went in to make a cup of tea, "what's a porn shop?"
Oh God, I thought. I really don't want to answer this in any sort of detail. "Well... it's a shop that sells rude stuff," I said casually, filling the kettle and cursing Jacqueline Wilson. Porn? In a children's book? I was all set to dash off a furious letter to the Torygraph until... click. The penny dropped. "Hang on," I said. "How is 'porn' spelled?"
"P...a...w...n..." she said.
Ahhh....
Meanwhile, I'm halfway through Wicked. Had to put it aside for Jonathan Creek last night which I kind of enjoyed - loved the death-by-bath idea but the end all got very silly. And as for that sub-plot with Candy Mountains... leave it out!
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