The Diamond Girls

Jacqueline Wilson was born in Bath, Somerset, in 1945, but spent most of her childhood in Kingston-on-Thames. She always wanted to be a writer and wrote her first “novel” when she was nine, filling countless Woolworths’ composition books as she grew up. She started work at a publisher and then went on to work as a journalist for D.C. Thomson in Scotland after she had an article published in Jackie magazine. Since having her daughter, Emma, she has been writing full time.Jacqueline’s biggest passion and/or worst vice is buying books. She has over 15,000 books crammed into every corner of her small house — and they’ve started to creep across the carpets. Her favorite holiday place is Hay-On-Wye, which has about twenty secondhand bookshops.Jacqueline has written numerous books for young people including: Bad Girls, Double Act, The Lottie Project, The Suitcase Kid, The Story of Tracy Beaker, The Bed and Breakfast Star, Cliffhanger, The Illustrated Mum and a quartet for slightly older readers, which includes Girls in Love (an ALA Quick Pick), Girls Under Pressure, Girls Out Late, and Girls in Tears. She has also written a series of crime novels and several plays, which have been broadcast on the radio. Jacqueline has received countless honors and has won several awards in England, including The Young Telegraph/Fully Booked Award for The Bed and Breakfast Star, the Smarties Prize, the Sheffield Children’s Book Award and the Children’s Book Award for Double Act. The Illustrated Mum was shortlisted for the Whitbread Children’s Book Awardand has won the Children’s Book of the Year at the British Book Awards and the Guardian Children’s Fiction Award. Girls in Tears received the W.H. Smith Children’s Book of the Year Award.