Jacqueline Wilson

Dame Jacqueline Wilson (born 1945) is an English children's author whose books, led by The Story of Tracy Beaker (1991), tackle subjects such as care, divorce and family breakdown; she was Children's Laureate from 2005 to 2007.

She was born Jacqueline Aitken in Bath on 17 December 1945. She began her career at D. C. Thomson, working on Jackie magazine, wrote crime fiction for adults, and published her first book in 1969 before turning to children's fiction. She has since written more than 100 books.

Her breakthrough came with The Story of Tracy Beaker, published by Doubleday on 14 February 1991 with illustrations by Nick Sharratt. Tracy returned in The Dare Game and Starring Tracy Beaker, and the BBC's CBBC adaptation ran for five series from 2002 to 2006. Double Act (1995) won the Nestlé Children's Book Prize, and The Illustrated Mum (1999) won the Guardian Children's Fiction Prize and was named children's book of the year at the British Book Awards. Four of her books reached the top 100 of the BBC's The Big Read in 2003, and she was the most borrowed author in British libraries from 2002 until 2008. She was made a Dame in 2008 and later promoted to Dame Grand Cross.

For collectors. The book most sought is the Doubleday first edition of The Story of Tracy Beaker (1991), the title that made her name; later editions came from Corgi, including 20th-anniversary and My Mum Tracy Beaker reissues.