Jacqueline Wilson’s Vicky Angel is a story for 11 year olds about a girl whose best friend dies on the walk home from school, and then declines to go anywhere.<\/p>\n
Jade tells it. She and Vicky have been best friends since nursery, when Vicky poured a toy teapot of water over her head and Jade felt honoured by the attention. At Downfield everyone calls them the Twins.<\/p>\n
Vicky is the one people want to be near. Quick, funny, pretty, always gets her way. Jade agrees with her out of pure habit.<\/p>\n
What Jade actually wants, and has told nobody, is to act. There’s a notice on the cloakroom door about a new Drama Club.<\/p>\n
Vicky calls it the weirdo club. Then she offers a deal. She’ll come to drama on Wednesdays if Jade comes to the Fun Run Club on Fridays.<\/p>\n
Jade can’t run. She’s last in every race and she knows exactly how she’d look. So she says no, scratches both names off the lists and stomps out.<\/p>\n
They’re still bickering past the school gate when Vicky steps into the road.<\/p>\n
That is the end of chapter one.<\/p>\n
You need to know that before you hand it over. A girl in Year Nine is hit by a car and killed in the first few pages, in front of Jade, in the middle of a daft row Jade started. The moment breaks apart on the page, a few words to a line. Then it slows right down and stays on the pavement. The driver insisting he was only doing twenty. The woman from a house saying the ambulance will be here soon, here soon, soon. Jade tucking her blazer round Vicky and shaking her shoulder to make her sit up and laugh.<\/p>\n
If your reader has lost somebody, or worries about accidents, that is a very heavy few pages. The book doesn’t then move on from it either. Vicky comes back, visible to Jade and nobody else, and being dead has not made her any less certain she should get her own way.<\/p>\n
For a reader who can take that opening, what follows is properly worth it. Jade’s guilt is the whole subject. She finally stood up to Vicky once, about a running club, and this is what happened next.<\/p>\n
It’s also much funnier than any of that sounds. Vicky in death is precisely Vicky in life, which is the joke and the trouble at the same time.<\/p>\n
One small thing. It’s British, set in an ordinary secondary school, so your reader will recognise the tutor groups, the cloakroom notices and the after-school clubs.<\/p>\n
If Jade’s voice is the one that lands, The Illustrated Mum is in the library too. Dolphin is another girl who adores somebody dazzling and exhausting, her mum in that case, and who ends up carrying a great deal more than she should.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Jacqueline Wilson’s Vicky Angel is a story for 11 year olds about a girl whose best friend dies on the walk home from school, and then declines to go anywhere. Jade tells it. She and Vicky have been best friends since nursery, when Vicky poured a toy teapot of water over her head and Jade […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":11046,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"lr_next_read_post_id":9133,"lr_next_read_anchor":"The Illustrated Mum","lr_seo_hook":"Jade finally says no to her best friend, and minutes later Vicky is dead."},"book_tag":[25],"age_group":[28],"book_type":[1044],"book_author":[419],"class_list":["post-9654","our-books","type-our-books","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","book_tag-friendship-books","age_group-books-for-11-year-olds","book_type-paid","book_author-jacqueline-wilson"],"yoast_title":"Vicky Angel by Jacqueline Wilson | Little Reads","yoast_metadesc":"Jade finally says no to her best friend, and minutes later Vicky is dead. For ages 11+. 3,000+ books in the Little Reads app. 7-day free trial.","acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n