rionaleonhart | Round To The Front, Where The Engine Lives.

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Round To The Front, Where The Engine Lives.

My favourite quote so far from For Richer, For Poorer, Victoria Coren's poker memoirs:

There is not enough money in the world for Ram. He is ever so handsome and the lady croupiers get lost in his big dark eyes, but Ram doesn't seem to notice women. If the dealer was topless, Ram would still look at the cards. He once had a girlfriend who asked Ram to write her a love poem. He wrote, 'On the moors there's heather and bramble, but all I want to do is gamble.' They are not together any more.

(I'm reading this book very slowly, I know, but it's absolutely not because I'm not enjoying it. I am savouring it. It's a great book to take to a coffee shop and read over a mug of hot chocolate.)

I bought For Richer, For Poorer on the way to see The Unbelievable Truth being recorded a couple of weeks ago, which leads nicely into my next paragraph: whilst waiting for the recording to begin,

valderys and I started talking about throwing underwear at David Mitchell, for some reason (as a general concept; we weren't making plans). We eventually concluded that the only way one could fittingly throw pants at Mitchell would be if they were very sensible plain M&S knickers, still in the five-pack. Nobody should actually do this; there's too much potential for injury, and you'd almost certainly be kicked out of the recording. It's just a thought that amuses me.

I spent the weekend at my aunt's, and in the course of the visit I read The Worry Website, one of many Jacqueline Wilson books belonging to my adorable tiny cousin-once-removed. I cried. I haven't read a Jacqueline Wilson book in so many years, and I'd forgotten what a wonderful writer for children she is.

You know, my first attempt at fanfiction - conceived before I even knew what fanfiction was - was actually a wildly ambitious idea for a film called Harry Potter and the Double Act Twins, in which Ruby and Garnet, the twins from Jacqueline Wilson's Double Act, went to Hogwarts. My best friend from primary school and I were going to write the script and play the twins. There were extremely fierce fights about who got to play Garnet, which, because I am meeker (...more Garnet-like, in fact), I lost.

I still have my handwritten notes on problems we would need to get around when filming it. These notes tell me that I was thinking we could get the necessary owls from bird sanctuaries, although what I've actually written is 'bird ~~sancuo~~ places'. The plan for Quidditch is 'Players sit on brooms suspended by springy wires. They will easily be able to swing round'. There's an illustration, but I note that the illustration doesn't show exactly what the brooms are to be suspended from.

To my recollection, we only actually rehearsed one scene, which involved my brother Joseph (playing Harry Potter) crawling along the landing towards the imagined Voldemort and snarling 'YOU... KILLED... MY... PARENTS' in the most dramatic way you've ever heard.

LET'S ALL REMINISCE ABOUT JACQUELINE WILSON'S BOOKS. I suppose it's possible that you didn't read her books as a child, in which case I can only apologise for your life. Go back in time, read them, and then come back here and join in the reminiscing.

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These notes tell me that I was thinking we could get the necessary owls from bird sanctuaries, although what I've actually written is 'bird ~~sancuo places~~'. The plan for Quidditch is 'Players sit on brooms suspended by springy wires. They will easily be able to swing round'.

RIONA THIS IS THE BEST THING I HAVE EVER READ

HOW IS TINY YOU SO UNBEARABLY ADORABLE

Looking through more of my notes, I notice that Ruby and Harry were going to catch the Snitch at the same time, which makes very little sense because they're - they're - they're both in Gryffindor.

(Also, my original plan for Quidditch was far more complicated: Players stand on platforms raised by ropes and painted to look like the background. By throwing our weight to one side, we should swing it. Never one to see the obvious, Tiny Riona. In a similar missing-the-obvious way, I've written that the Quidditch balls could be 'covered with red/black paper', with 'or painted' hastily added in a different ink.)

Oh, I would love to meet Jacqueline Wilson! You've put me in the mood for going to a library and reading all her books. I'LL BE IN THE CHILDREN'S SECTION IF I WANT TO; GO AWAY, PEOPLE WITH YOUR JUDGMENTAL EYES.

Also Jaqueline Wilson was completely the formative author of my childhood. I met her at a signing once and I can remember it so clearly; she looked so exactly like she always does, grey hair, grey clothes, gentle smile, all those rings. In year--eight, I think, I remember doing a book review presentation on her book Girls Under Pressure because that book meant so much to me as a fat kid ): I'm pretty sure I got really emotional in front of my whole English class.

Double Act made me weep as a child. Partly it was because, as a triplet, the emotional agony of twins-splitting-up felt very real to me, but also because, as you say, Jacqueline Wilson writes very well for children. Oh, and The Mummy Cat - I read that in a bookshop, in one sitting, and ended up in floods of tears (the girl's name was the same as mine, and I also had a beloved old cat - she died a few weeks later, in fact - but also because, again, the writing was so horrifically sad).

... I think most of my most vivid Jacqueline Wilson memories involve crying, somehow.

I've never read The Cat Mummy, so I looked it up after reading this comment, and just reading the summary made me want to cry. NEVER TOUCHING THAT ONE. (I didn't know you were a triplet!)

I remember that The Bed and Breakfast Star freaked me out tremendously, because I read it having previously been traumatised by a school talk in which a fireman came in and told us all about how OUR HOUSES WERE GOING TO BURN DOWN AND WE WERE ALL GOING TO DIE (those were probably not the exact words he used, but that was the very strong impression with which I came away from his lecture). I used to run around the house before going to bed, switching off all the power points and annoying my parents tremendously.

Two tremendouslies in a single paragraph are too many tremendouslies.

Never touching it is a very good idea. I haven't gone near it since. Now I think about it, it must have been ten years, and yet I still can't bear to remind myself of it. Because it was SO AWFUL.

I got traumatised by those school talks as well! I still remember, vividly, being told that if there is a fire in a room and you open a door to it, THERE WILL BE A MASSIVE FIREBALL AND YOU WILL DIE. We also got told a terrifying story about a little boy who was playing with his mum's lighter which she'd left lying around: he kept trying to light it, but only managing to release a little of the gas each time, without striking it fully. By the time he managed to get a flame, he and the armchair were surrounded by flammable gas and it caught fire and he was horribly burned.

... and that is why I can't use lighters. It's a good thing I don't smoke.

Also, your plans for Harry Potter and the Double Act Twins are wonderful and I love them. Is Garnet in Ravenclaw or Hufflepuff?

We had the 'massive fireball of death' talk as well! It was horrible. I'd lie awake at night and planned my escape route in case I woke up to find the house in flames. (Our homework after the fireman talk was to write down how we'd get out of the house if there was a fire. The teachers praised my work. I was taking it very seriously.)

Is Garnet in Ravenclaw or Hufflepuff?

At the time (I think we were ten or so?), both my friend and I firmly believed that GRYFFINDOR WAS THE ONLY HOUSE TO BE IN and therefore obviously the characters we played would both be in Gryffindor. My dad actually came up with the idea that Garnet makes the Sorting Hat malfunction because she has some sort of weird magic-blocking ability and so she gets put into Hufflepuff because they don't know what else to do with her. Which is a little odd, because, as you point out, she could fit perfectly well into Hufflepuff anyway.

I'm sure the firefighters who talked to us both would be gratified to know that we still remembered what they told us. Maybe. (Apparently other people didn't have their lives blighted by the fire-related terror that would stay with them forever due to those talks. This confuses me.)

I like your dad's idea! But yes, she could fit into Hufflepuff - she's loyal, definitely, and hardworking and nice. But clever, as well, which is why I wondered about Ravenclaw. (I do think she's brave in her own way, so not totally unsuited to Gryffindor, but that she would fit into one of the others better.)

... I am probably devoting too much thought to this question.

I read several Jacqueline Wilson books as a notional adult - it was possible to pick one up when we got home from school "just to see" what my daughter was reading, and get through all of it in an hour or so before I had to be grown up again and sort out food and stuff like that.

Yes, she is an excellent writer - her books managed to be about "issues" without ever being preachy or dull, and that's brilliant :-) I probably have mixed them all up in my head though - because I read them in a hurry and didn't ever reread them or devote much thinking time to them.

I have also finished "For Richer, For Poorer" now, but I probably do want to reread that - it has changed my view of Victoria Coren, but I still like her just as much ♥

I will wait until you have finished it too before waffling, since I don't want to detract from your savouring.

it was possible to pick one up when we got home from school "just to see" what my daughter was reading

Hee, yes. My evil plan is to have children just so people can't look askance at me if I spend ages in the children's section at the bookshop or buy masses of Pokémon merchandise. Also as a means of studying language development firsthand. I - I probably shouldn't have children.

Playing with their toys and reading their books is definitely a perk of parenting - also watching Phineas and Ferb - and a certain amount of discrete scientific observation is also reasonable, IMHO.

On the one hand, I don't think you should be put off your hobbies by what other people might think; on the other hand, Jeremy Clarkson is a parent, so HHCIB - I think you are as eligible as anyone else ever is ;-)

I've never read anything by Jacqueline Wilson. I've never heard of Jacqueline Wilson. What kind of books does she write?

Also, you were an incredibly adorable child.

Jacqueline Wilson is an excellent writer for children! She's very famous in the UK - she held the title of the author whose works were most borrowed from libraries from 2004 to 2008 and has received a damehood (the female equivalent of a knighthood) in recognition of her services to children's literature - but I suppose she might not be so well-known elsewhere. She has written over ninety books; they're often about children dealing with quite heavy problems (foster care, homelessness, absent or alcoholic parents, death, parental divorce), but she writes with a huge amount of humour and spirit.

Ah. I'm not sure if she's as well-known in America, and as a child I had a distinct tendency to skip the children's books that had reasonably realistic problems in favor of fantasy novels and similar stuff (my dad read me The Hobbit when I was four - it had a distinct influence on my taste in literature). I'd probably have actively avoided her books if I saw them.

I've never read any Jacqueline Wilson, but I think I watched a film adaptation of Double Act on a summer afternoon between two and five years ago. I expected it to be, well, a small-budget kiddy film, but it was really really good. I'll have to find some of her books now.

There is a thing you should see:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3iQNtdoTGY

I had a funny moment of "what Jacqueline Wilson books did I read?" after reading this post, so I pulled up the wiki list of her books to see what I remember.

On the way, I found a hilarious review for Glubbslyme claiming it was teaching kids witchcraft. REALLY? That's not what I got from that book...

So I've read... let's see:

The Story of Tracy Beaker
The Dare Game
Girls In Love
Girls Under Pressure
Girls Out Late
Girls In Tears
Cliffhanger
Buried Alive!
How to Survive Summer Camp
Glubbslyme
The Suitcase Kid
The Mum Minder
The Bed and Breakfast Star
Double Act
Bad Girls
The Lottie Project
The Illustrated Mum
Vicky Angel
Dustbin Baby (didn't they do a film of this?)
Lola Rose
Midnight

...It feels like more than that, but equally that's a lot. XD

I remember hating Ruby in Double Act, I thought she was a jerk. XD

I got rather annoyed with Ellie's friends in the girls series too, actually...

I remember being out shopping for books once when I was about 12 and a grandma started chatting to me. She asked if I read Jacqueline Wilson, and if I had any recommendations for her eight year old granddaughter, who'd just read one of her books and really loved it, so she'd decided to look for some more. It was a pretty neat conversation.

Also, this reminds me all of those good old books I read as a kid that apparently nobody has ever heard of (sadly)... like

Angela and Diabola by Lynn Reid Banks. I loved that book. It's also a twin book, actually, with a pure good twin and a pure evil twin. (Diabola would be in Slytherin hands down. Angela would probably be put in Gryffindor in fanfic, but she's more a Hufflepuff really.)

Dick King Smith's Sophie series. I can't tell you how awesome it was to read about a tomboy character when so much little girl fiction isn't. They were... Sophie's Snail, Sophie's Tom, Sophie Hits Six, Sophie in the Saddle, Sophie is Seven, Sophie is Lucky. Mind you, he wrote plenty of other stuff that people do know about - The Queen's Nose, for instance. (Also a good series!)

The Josie Smith books by Magdalen Nabb! That was adapted into a pretty good TV series, I used to record it. XD They were... Josie Smith, Josie Smith and Eileen, Josie Smith at Christmas, Josie Smith at the Seaside, Josie Smith at School, Josie Smith in Hospital, Josie Smith at the Market, Josie Smith in Summer, Josie Smith in Winter, Josie Smith in Spring, Josie Smith in Autumn. I definitely didn't read the season ones (I don't think they were published at the time I read the series), and maybe not the market one either.

The Milly Molly Mandy Storybook by Joyce Lankester Brisley was pretty cool too. An older book than the others on this list, but I really enjoyed it.

There were these Charlie and Angela books I can't for the life of me remember the name of and it's really irritating me. Um... Creative googling took way too long (it got swamped in Moonface and Twilight results). These books are apparently obscure enough I can't even pull up my book list on the author, but while I can't recall the order, I believe the books are My Best Fiend, Holiday With the Fiend, The Fiend Next Door, Revenge of the Fiend, Trouble With the Fiend, Calamity With the Fiend, Disaster With the Fiend. They're by Sheila Lavelle.

And of course there were Roald Dahl books... which people do know. And Enid Blyton who is, again, known. :P Malorie Blackman's Whizziwig (and various other stories)! The Mister Majeika stories!

These were all things I read when I was about... six to ten? I definitely remember being about the same age as Sophie when I read the Sophie books...

And sorry for the comment of random, but your post made me get all nostalgic. XD

What books did you read when you were younger? Any obscure ones?

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Round To The Front, Where The Engine Lives.

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