Jacqueline Wilson has said she would feel “very wary” about writing an adult novel about Tracy Beaker “because it would seem inappropriate that we would learn about her sex life”.
Last year the beloved children’s author published her first novel for adults since the 1970s. Think Again was a sequel to her Girls series for teenagers, which was published between 1998 and 2002, and revisited its protagonist Ellie, who in the new book is turning 40.
It became a bestseller, resonating with fans who grew up with Ellie and her friends. Wilson has since announced a second adult sequel, due out in August, this time revisiting her 1999 children’s book The Illustrated Mum.
Writing these sequels “gives me pleasure”, Wilson told the audience at theHay festivalin Powys. But although she plans to write more, she said Beaker, her most famous character, was unlikely to be a subject.
Wilson said Beaker had become much bigger than just the character she created, largely thanks to the popular TV series based on the novels. The feisty, curly haired heroine means a great deal to Wilson personally, too: “She’s my girl that made everything happen for me.”
So while she was happy to write about Beaker as an adult from the perspective of her daughter, Jess, writing about a grownup Tracy does not appeal as it would involve writing about her sex life. “I don’t want to go there,” the 79-year-old author said.
However, Wilson did add that over the years she had learned not to say “I would never do that”. In two or three years’ time – “if I’ve got them!”, the author joked – “something or other” might make her think: “Ah, I could do it this way,” she said. “So who knows?”
Wilson said she did know which of her former characters was next to be revisited in an adult book, but she hadn’t started writing it yet and her publishers wouldn’t allow her to say who it was. She said she hoped the book would be out next year, “and I hope it will be a good choice”.
She acknowledged that some people might think she was only taking on these adult projects because she “can’t get any new ideas”, but she insisted that was not true. “But I do like to go back,” she said. “It’s a kind of literary Friends Reunited.”
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During the Hay event, Wilson expressed worry that 12 of her novels had apparently been used to train AI models. “Authors are completely unable to monitor what happens,” and “certainly don’t give permission for that,” she said.
However, she said she took comfort from finding that when her partner’s brother-in-law asked AI to write a story for his daughter in the style of Jacqueline Wilson, “it was just unbearably awful. So I hope anyone who likes my books could not be happy with an AI version.”