Jacqueline Wilson’s Bad Girls is a story for 8 year olds about a girl who is being got at every day, and the older girl who decides to like her.<\/p>\n
Mandy sees them the second she turns the corner. Three of them by the bus stop. Melanie, Sarah and Kim.<\/p>\n
Kim is the worst one.<\/p>\n
Mandy’s dad told her to tease them back, but you can’t tease a girl like Kim, because there is nothing to tease her about. Her mum told her they would get tired of it on their own. They have not got tired yet.<\/p>\n
So she walks at them with wobbly legs and her dress stuck to her back, trying to look like she doesn’t mind.<\/p>\n
What follows is a child being taken apart in the street. Her glasses. Her mum, who is fifty-five and has grey hair and puffy feet. Her dad, who is sixty-two and paints in a fisherman’s smock, which Kim decides is a dress. Melanie supplies every detail, because Melanie used to be Mandy’s best friend and knows all of it.<\/p>\n
And then Mandy opens her mouth and invents a whole other mother. A famous model, who sends her wonderful clothes that her adopted mum locks away in trunks upstairs.<\/p>\n
You know that feeling of reading it. The lie getting bigger and easier while you want to shout at her to stop.<\/p>\n
What makes the book so good is that Mandy is no saint about any of it. She loves her mum and dad. She is also secretly ashamed of them, and lies awake inventing younger cooler ones called Kate and Nick, then feels so guilty in the morning that she takes them a cup of tea.<\/p>\n
Then Tanya turns up at the house across the road, where a lady fosters babies. She is older, with bitten purple nails, high heels and a laugh that makes even Mandy’s mum want to smile. She walks straight past that mum, up the stairs, and announces that Mandy’s bedroom is brilliant.<\/p>\n
Mandy cannot believe her luck. Her mum can see something coming.<\/p>\n
Worth knowing before you start. The bullying opens the book and it is relentless and personal, about looks, about glasses, about a child’s own parents. Mandy tells a big lie and is caught out in front of everyone. She also daydreams about having different parents and hates herself for it. For a child being picked on right now, this could be a lot to sit with, and I’d want to be reading it alongside them. For a child who has ever felt like the odd one out, Mandy will feel like the first person to describe it properly.<\/p>\n
One practical note. The stocked text is the American edition, so it’s mom, sidewalk and bangs.<\/p>\n
If she takes to Mandy’s voice, The Story of Tracy Beaker is told by another girl with a talent for improving the truth, who has no parents at home at all and would very much like some.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Jacqueline Wilson’s Bad Girls is a story for 8 year olds about a girl who is being got at every day, and the older girl who decides to like her. Mandy sees them the second she turns the corner. Three of them by the bus stop. Melanie, Sarah and Kim. Kim is the worst one. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":11167,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"lr_next_read_post_id":9437,"lr_next_read_anchor":"The Story of Tracy Beaker","lr_seo_hook":"A bullied girl gets a glamorous new friend her mum does not trust."},"book_tag":[25],"age_group":[26],"book_type":[1044],"book_author":[419],"class_list":["post-6866","our-books","type-our-books","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","book_tag-friendship-books","age_group-books-for-8-year-olds","book_type-paid","book_author-jacqueline-wilson"],"yoast_title":"Bad Girls by Jacqueline Wilson | Little Reads","yoast_metadesc":"A bullied girl gets a glamorous new friend her mum does not trust. For ages 8+. 3,000+ books in the Little Reads app. 7-day free trial.","acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n