Best Friends

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Prudence is her father's favourite in Love Lessons, but he barely treats her any better than her mother or sister. April in Dustbin Baby is haunted by the question of why her birth mother abandoned her and is traumatised by her adoptive mother's suicide. It's implied that Tracy Beaker was abused by her mother's boyfriends before being taken into care. Tracy also mentions that before going to the "Dumping Ground", she lived with "Aunt" Peggy: a foster carer who frequently hit her and yelled at her.

Breakout Character - Hetty Feather, who has overtaken Tracy Beaker as Wilson's best known/most popular character. Word of God even states that Hetty is her favorite character.

Tropes found in her works:

In the first book of the Girls series, Ellie falls hard for Kevin, an older boy she has seen around town but never really met or spoken to. She later develops a relationship with Dan (a boy her own age) and has to accept that Kevin will never live up to her romantic fantasies as he is gay; however, Ellie and Kevin do form a genuine platonic friendship. Katy's father in Waiting For the Sky to Fall, and Prue's father in Love Lessons, are extremely controlling, demanding and emotionally abusive towards their children. Market-Based Title: Elsa, Star of the Shelter was changed to The Bed and Breakfast Star in reprints, to reflect the change in accommodation offered to families like Elsa's. Alice's mother in Best Friends is incredibly insensitive towards how much the move is distressing her Alice and Gemma, who have been best friends since birth. And Gemma's mum's no angel either, being so critical of Gemma and Alice running off together, although this is a certain amount of JerkassHasAPoint, and AngerBornOfWorry. An early novel that Wilson based on this theme was Amber, in which the title character struggles to lead a normal life in spite of her mother's irresponsible hippy/"groupie" lifestyle.

Lily’s mother in Lily Alone was only 15 when she had Lily, and is implied to be very codependent on men, resulting in three more children. However, she’s very immature, still trying to be a teenager and certainly not ready to be a mother, constantly dumping her younger children on Lily with bad results and has the kids taken away, with a low chance of reunification. She does love her kids, but she’s still a bad mother in the eyes of the law. Author Appeal: Wilson is a big fan of The Wizard of Oz and includes many references to it in her books. Characters frequently bring it up as their favourite movie. A lot of the books also involve the protagonist having red as their favourite colour like Wilson. Eye Scream: In Emerald Star, Gideon is discharged from the army because he lost an eye in the course of duty (and is close to losing the sight in the other one.) This apparently happened due to having so much guilt about shooting another man that he kept seeing it, so he attempted to blind himself. Attempted Rape - Magda in Girls Under Pressure. Particularly notable since Nadine was almost date-raped in Girls In Love.

Did we miss something on diversity?

Cute Bruiser - Tracy Beaker, Elsa in The Bed and Breakfast Star, Jude in The Diamond Girls, Gemma in Best Friends, Ruby in Double Act, Treasure in Secrets, Dolphin in The Illustrated Mum. Jailbait Taboo: Some of the other girls in Baby Love are likely to have gotten their children this way, but Sarah in particular tells Laura that her baby's father was a Sunday School teacher. Tragically, she believes she made him do it because he was attracted to her and prays every night to make sure no other men are attracted to her. She may be at the age of consent, but the attitudes of the time make it this. Billy "Biscuits" McVitie: The girls' schoolfriend, a tubby boy who loves food, both eating and cooking. Gemma and Alice form a temporary hatred for him when he "tells on them" to his mother about their plots on running away. When Alice is gone, Gemma and Biscuits become closer as friends and work together for a project on famous TV chef "Fat Larry", as well as Biscuits making Gemma her special birthday cake at her party. He is invited to Gemma's party. Promotion to Parent - Sadie in The Mum-Minder, who must take over her ailing mother's childminding duties for a week. Jayni/Lola Rose gets this to some extent in Lola Rose when her mother goes into hospital, leaving her alone to take care of her little brother. Not Blood Siblings - Jem and Hetty in Hetty Feather were foster siblings, although Jem ends up marrying someone else.

In Katy, Katy's parents are suspicious of her new friend Imogen partly because Imogen calls her father by his given name. Floss is very close with her father, Charlie, so much so that her mother seems jealous at times of their bond. The fact that she chooses to stay with him instead of going to Australia with her mother is proof enough, although she makes it clear that his disorganized lifestyle and chip-related work leads to problems in Floss' school and social life throughout the book.

The Alcoholic: Averted in Love Frankie when Frankie's mother falls over in front of all the high school students and they assume she's been drinking. She actually suffers from MS, which affects her muscles, but she asks Frankie not to tell anyone, so everyone continues to think it was caused by drunkenness.

In The Diamond Girls, Sue's daughters range in age from 10 to 16 and she then has another baby. Dixie finds out her dad's current wife has recently had another baby as well, meaning she has two siblings a decade younger than she.Hetty Feather does this twice: looking for her mother in Hetty Feather, and her father in Emerald Star. She finds both. In Opal Plumstead, Opal's mother's actions make it clear she prefers Cassie to Opal. Opal doesn't really care, but she also believes that her father also can't help liking Cassie more, which bothers her. In the book, no name is given for Gemma's dad and he also works as a taxi driver; in the TV series, Gemma's dad is thought to be called Tony, and also unemployed. No Social Skills: A huge part of Prudence's problems in Love Lessons, when she is incapable of fitting in with others thanks to years of homeschooling and her own rather headstrong attitude. Ironically, her younger sister ends up happy and makes friends easily even though she is frequently considered 'slow' by her family. The art teacher in Girls Out Late. Ellie is thrilled when his girlfriend tells her she's his favourite student. He's also very considerate with Magda when she confesses her crush on him, dealing with the situation kindly and discreetly but professionally.