The books that CHANGED MY LIFE

Much-loved children’s author Jacqueline Wilson has written over 100 books. Her latest is THE LAST BOOK THAT MADE ME LAUGH

Jacqueline Wilson

The Magic Faraway Tree: A New Adventure. Here, she shares the books that have made her laugh, cry and think…

A book about Robert Douglas-fairhurst’s experience of multiple sclerosis doesn’t sound like a book to make you laugh, but Metamorphosis is told in such blackly comic style that you can’t help chuckling. His account of having to pee into a bush while observed by his elderly neighbour and her dog is marvellously funny.

THE LAST BOOK THAT MADE ME CRY

Terry Pratchett:

A Life With Footnotes is a comprehensive biography of Terry Pratchett by his long-time personal assistant, Rob Wilkins, and does him proud. Terry’s dynamic personality and extraordinary energy burst out of the book – but his decline into the foggy world of dementia is devastating.

THE BOOK THAT CHANGED THE WAY I THINK

I came across the story The Doll’s House (which can be

The Collected Short Stories Of Katherine Mansfield) by Katherine Mansfield when I was 10. The little girls in the story were so real: the middle-class Burnell children and the two shunned Kelvey girls, the washerwoman’s daughters. My heart thumped hard as I read. Now I knew the sort of stories I hoped to write one day!

THE BOOK THAT GOT ME THROUGH A DIFFICULT TIME

I left home when I was 17, to work as a journalist in Scotland. I curled up with Emma by Jane Austen in the linen cupboard every evening for the first week instead of joining the other girls in the hostel living room. She was excellent company.

THE BOOK I MOST OFTEN GIVE TO OTHERS

When young teenage girls ask me what to read next, I hand them I Capture The Castle by Dodie Smith. Its heroine, Cassandra, is intense, literary and poor – and lives in a crumbling castle. It’s been my comfort book since I was 12.

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