Dancing The Charleston by Jacqueline Wilson

In this book, Mona lives with her auntie who cares for her after her mum passed and so did her dad too when she was just a baby and he was in the war.

Her auntie is a seamstress for a lady and when the lady passes the pair worry they'll be made homeless.

Mr Benjamin the youngest son, moves in after his mum passed who's the kindest of all the Somerset's and likes Mona a lot even if he is very flamboyant with his tastes and company he keeps.

He does however turn Mona and her aunt's lives around as her aunty gets an amazing knew job for Harrod's!

However after Mona falls out with her friends after getting a trial to go to a proper high school giving her a better looking future, she befriends the Somerset children and they go on an adventure to London which a shock twist comes out there about Mona's mother everyone knew but her...

I really enjoyed this book, as someone who had a grandma who made theatre costumes I could relate to Mona's feelings about talented seamstresses and sympathise over how she felt her familial loses too being so young and we know how grief is at that age. Friendship can be fickle and that point came across well too overall this book was another great by the one and only Jacqueline Wilson.

My Mum Tracy Beaker by Jacqueline Wilson

Tracy Beaker is back with her daughter Jess in a wonderful follow up to her own smash series!

Life for the pair collides with the past as Tracy falls for Shaun a previous character known as Football for us readers and we see how Jess has to accept and prepare for change as her mum sets to marry him and move from their usual council estate to his mansion house.

Through the story, Cam is there for Jess to open up to as well as Tyrone a boy from school who previously bullies Jess before the pair become a form of friends.

Battersea cats and dogs home shows up in the story promoting adopting animals over buying puppies or kittens and the girls discover their lives may be perfect without a man on the scene as they make a great team!

All about how life changes can cause friendship and relationship changes as life adapts to new situations, this was a stunning addition to a well loved classic series, the points made are positive to mention from adoption to love, family and friendship.

Katy by Jacqueline Wilson

Katy is the eldest of her siblings as she lives with her dad and step mum Izzie and the assortment of children they already had and had together from Katy, Elsie, Clover, Phil, Dorry, Jonnie and Cecy, her best friend too who's practically like another sister.

Usually the one to make up games and entertain her siblings, she often winds up in trouble somehow. But all the girls and boys are on their best behaviour when their dad's favourite ex patient comes to visit, Helen has rheumatoid arthritis and is in a wheelchair but hasn't let it hold her back as she's a highly successful academic becoming a doctor herself!

After Katy isn't allowed to have her skateboard back but goes behind her step mum's back to go out anyway, she tries to concoct a swing from a tree beach with a single piece of tied rope.

However, Katie asked to a changed life after her worried neighbour finds her and she gets whisked away to hospital where she remains for weeks of her school holiday. Once a life loving eleven year old looking forward to the summer holiday before secondary school starts, she hates the idea her life will now be wheelchair bound and limited.

Over the course of being in hospital, she has a kind nurse Jasmine, while she makes friends eventually with a boy called Dexter whom is a bit goth/emo/alternative and lives to draw graphic comic strips featuring baddies and the from reaper. They both relate as similar things have happened to them only as Dexter gets dumped by his girlfriend and Katy hates that her family get to go on holiday without her, or her dad as he's a doctor and choses to stay to see Katy, the pair keep up visiting and cheering each other up.

We then see Katy struggle adapting the life at home and school with Cecy as she faces life in a wheelchair and all it brings while she discovers it doesn't change her true character as she fits back in with her family and friends.

The book features many life changing moments for Katy from starting back at school and needing them to make changes to accommodate her as she has had to make for her life. The topic of everyday girl typical worries about weight come up as Katy wishes to just be able to take part normally in sport like the other students as well as the Paralympic games even being featured to inspire her. It puts day to day worries into perspective as Katy realises her life is changed forever and captures a true look at disability in children/teens and how it affects them.

Lily Alone by Jacqueline Wilson

When Lily's mum goes away on holiday with her new boyfriend, she supposedly leaves Lily's brother Baxter's dad in charge of the kids, though he never turns up.

Lily is only eleven and has to be Lilymum as she calls herself when looking after the siblings, Pixie, Bliss and Baxter who are all younger. As they her teacher come knocking getting suspicious when Lily isn't in school for three days and can't see her mum, he grows suspicious and so Lily takes herself and the others to camp out in the local park.

It's very dangerous as they stay there and forage for food whilst trying not to get noticed and even resort to desperate enough measures they have to sneak into someone's house and try to steal food!

As well as that, Bliss climbs a tree and gets into serious trouble as the branch prepares to snap, changing their lives in many ways as their mum turns up, arrested by the police and social workers split Lily from her beloved siblings.

Lily may have day dreamed about living alone when she's older, but she would do anything for her siblings as she does when she's forced into this horrible situation. All about neglect and not coping on her mum's half as she herself wants to just be a kid in some ways and her own idea of fun. It was a gripping read seeing how the children survived as they lived wild in a public park where it is obviously unsafe to stay.

Hetty Feather by Jacqueline Wilson

Taken to the foundling hospital as a baby, Hetty is fostered until she reaches the age of six and is brought up with many siblings, Gideon, Martha and Eliza are also fostered from there too.

She hates the idea of going back to the foundling hospital when she's six as she'll have to stay until she's fourteen. But her not by blood relation brother, Jem says they'll marry and be happy together when she's old enough.

Hetty loves seeing the wonders of the Circus when it arrives from Elijah the elephant to her loved Madame Adeline whom invites her up to ride with her on her horse and calls Hetty her little star.

Then her time is up at home and she's forced into the Foundling hospital where she's trained to be a seamstress and makes enemies of Sheila and Monica but a friend in Polly even battling influenza together as tragedy strikes Hetty's old foster family life.

Then, suddenly Polly is adopted out of the hospital to replace a rich couple's dead daughter!

In a turn of events, on an outing for the jubilee, Hetty runs away when she spots the circus and ends up across London, in a close call with a man where she gets helped by a kind girl selling flowers and have a run in with an aspiring author, Miss Smith, whom returns Hetty from her jaunt to the foundling hospital where she finally learns her real mum would have called her Sapphire and was hiding in plain sight all along. In this historical mystery fiction.

I found Hetty a great character of a girl, strong willed and unafraid to be herself even when others disagree with her she holds herself strong and sure. It's shocking to think in the past many girls sufferred the way the foundlings did or served horrid masters but Hetty had something positive in the Circus to hold dear in her memories and heart as she yearned to return and perform one day and that goal as well as to be a writer showed her fiery spirit staying strong.

Opal Plumstead by Jacqueline Wilson

In a tale told during suffragette times as women fight for the vote, going fourteen year old Opal is forced to leave her school scholarship after her father, a promising hopeful author to be is found guilty of stealing money from his employer after indulging in many extravagant purchases for his family.

As Opal, her sister Cassie and her mother all take on jobs to afford the rent now the man of the house is disgraced in prison, Opal suffers the eye of hopeful young Fred, Patty an awful girl and hates not seeing her best friend Olivia as she's forced to work at Fairy Glen Sweet Factory.

Her sister grows close to a man she met while working whom has been painting herher. As Opal progresses in her job at the sweet factory, she grows close to the owner, going to suffrage meetings and to tea with her too where she eventually meets her son, Morgan after he returns from Oxford.

Her mother grows more sour and hateful of her life now after failing to work any normal workhouse jobs. She also grows more despairing over her 'lying' daughters as she struggles to believe they have fallen for decent men after her own husbands betrayal.

As the story progresses, Opal and Morgan become fond of each other but the war comes between them both as he has to go and fight. Cassie and Daniel are a well matched couple as Cassie leaves home to be threatened never to come back by their mother. While Opal's father becomes a shadow of the former gentleman he was once before the year the novel is set over happened.

It is a taxing time war and this family goes through hell before that even gets declared. From the start I found the book hard to get into as times now are obviously very different to times then.
However, as the story unravelled and developed, I grew find of Opal and her kind character even if her family and friends didn't all stay loving and caring towards her as they were very bitter and judgemental, her story is portrayed as a tragic one eventually and for poor Opal it was sadly how things often went back then with war meaning losing loved ones and than prison changes people. It was a very honest realistic retelling of the first world war and time leading up to and into it for hard pressured families I feel.

Wave Me Goodbye by Jacqueline Wilson

When ten year old Shirley thinks she's going on holiday to the country she thinks her Mum is going too, until it dawns she's going alone, evacuated because of the imminent war.

On the train she is sat next to Jessica, a St Agatha's convent girl where they are looked after and taught by nuns to be proper ladies though the other girls on the train from that school are mean to Jessica and Shirley but they still become form friends quickly.

Upon arriving in the countryside, Jessica and Shirley have to split up as they aren't going to stay at the same places, it unsettled them but they promise to stay friends. Shirley winds up left with a few other children and so they're forced into villagers with rooms. Shirley ends up also placed with Kevin a boy who's also ten but very tall and Archie a young bald boy. They stay with the mysterious Chubby, a bossy housekeeper and her friend Lady Waverley.

In the countryside they still have to attend school and horrid Marilyn from back in London is also there though all the children are scared of their mean teacher who shouts a lot and uses threats of the cane style contraptions on the kids hands to keep them behaving.

Shirley later sends a postcard to her Mum which describes how it was on her first day and how horrible she found it, however it causes her Mum so much concern she travels to meet the women taking care of her daughter and is so horrified she wants to take Shirley to stay with her boss's relatives.

Mrs Waverly also lets Shirley in on her secret room and confides in her about why she keeps what she does in there, it is very moving only a situation involving Kevin and him then running away leads him and Shirley into a dangerous encounter.

Throughout the book, as expected from a novel set in wartime England, there's old time language and what would be considered minor swearing but time appropriate. There's mentions of objects from wartime England and the caricatures depicted the time and theme of the book tremendously. Shirley was a great character and she really earnt a place in my heart over how kind she was and cheeky when necessary!

I was super excited to read this book and it fulfilled my dreams of it being a great book once again from Jacqueline. It was an emotional journey and super realistic keep your tissues ready!