Book info

• Title Double Act
• Author Jacqueline Wilson
• Year 1995
• Genre Childrens

Ruby and Garnet are ten-year-old twins. They're identical, and they do EVERYTHING together, especially since their mother died three years earlier - but they couldn't be more different. Bossy, bouncy, funny Ruby loves to take charge, and is desperate to be a famous actress, while quiet, sensitive, academic Garnet loves nothing more than to curl up with one of her favourite books. And when everything around the twins is changing so much, can being a double act work for ever?

Thoughts

Mmm, Jacqueline Wilson. I’m secretly very glad that my reading list is giving me an excuse to consume these books. They only take an hour and it’s always a glorious experience. I’ve always loved Ms Wilson’s work, since I was a kid, but she’s so prolific that I missed out on a lot of the stuff, and then got too old for it.

Somehow, she manages to get right inside the heads of children, which is so impressive to me who cannot relate to little ones at all. Supposedly I was a kid at some point, but I rarely remember what it was like. Then I read one of Wilson’s books and it all comes flooding back.

There’s loads packed into this story too - dealing with coming out from a sibling’s shadow, a new step-mother, bullies, not getting your dream job, and moving schools. The format of the story - each twin contributing to a scrapbook - is great, although it felt a little forced at times. Easy to gloss over those bits though, to keep the story moving forward. Good stuff.

Rating: 4 / 5