The Illustrated Mum by Jacqueline Wilson is a story for 11 year olds about two sisters looking after a mum who cannot always look after them.<\/p>\n
Dolphin is the younger one and she tells you everything. Marigold is their mum, covered in tattoos, turning thirty three, and about to have a very bad day.<\/p>\n
It is her birthday. Star has made a card in her best calligraphy with glitter threes on it. Dolphin has drawn Marigold’s thirty three favourite things, which is a lot to fit on one page.<\/p>\n
Marigold cries at the card. She cries at the CD. She cries when Dolphin combs her hair up with the new clasp. Then she asks for the birthday cake she had specifically told them not to buy.<\/p>\n
That morning is the whole book in miniature. The girls try enormously hard, it is somehow never the right thing, and they can both feel it starting again.<\/p>\n
Dolphin adores her anyway. She loves her mum’s smell and her hair and the way she draws, and she is proud of every bit of her. She also watches her every second.<\/p>\n
Star is in Year Eight and past all that. She is the one who takes the housekeeping purse and goes out for a cake, slamming the door behind her.<\/p>\n
You get the love and the fear in the same breath, over and over. That is what makes it so good and also quite heavy going.<\/p>\n
Be clear eyed about this one before you pass it on. Marigold’s mental health is what the book is about. It opens with her sliding downhill on her birthday and the first line makes clear this has happened many times before. She also talks about her own childhood in a children’s home and a woman there who frightened her.<\/p>\n
The girls are left managing her moods, the money and each other, and things get harder than that first birthday. This is not one to hand to a child who is currently anxious about a parent.<\/p>\n
For a reader who is ready for it, Dolphin is wonderful company and very funny about things that are not funny at all. The sisters feel completely real, including the bits where they cannot stand each other.<\/p>\n
Lola Rose does something similar with another girl holding a family together. Jayni gives herself a new name and a new start in London after her mum wins ten thousand pounds on a scratch card, with a little brother to mind and a father they have run away from.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Illustrated Mum by Jacqueline Wilson is a story for 11 year olds about two sisters looking after a mum who cannot always look after them. Dolphin is the younger one and she tells you everything. Marigold is their mum, covered in tattoos, turning thirty three, and about to have a very bad day. It […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":11749,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"lr_next_read_post_id":7969,"lr_next_read_anchor":"Lola Rose","lr_seo_hook":"Two sisters plan the perfect birthday for a mother whose moods they cannot predict."},"book_tag":[20],"age_group":[28],"book_type":[1044],"book_author":[419],"class_list":["post-9133","our-books","type-our-books","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","book_tag-real-life-books","age_group-books-for-11-year-olds","book_type-paid","book_author-jacqueline-wilson"],"yoast_title":"The Illustrated Mum by Jacqueline Wilson | Little Reads","yoast_metadesc":"Two sisters plan the perfect birthday for a mother whose moods they cannot predict. For ages 11+. 3,000+ books in the Little Reads app. 7-day free trial.","acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n