Book description
Beauty Cookson is no beauty. She's a plain, timid girl who constantly
feels inferior to the super-confident, snooty girls at school. Worse
than the teasing in the playground, though, is the unpredictable,
hurtful criticism from her father. Beauty and her meek, sweet mother
live in uneasy fear of his fierce rages, sparked whenever they break
one of his fussy house rules.
Eventually, after an unbearable birthday party and the very real
threat of Dad's out-of-control temper, Mum and Beauty run away.
Finding themselves in a quiet, idyllic seaside village, their
new-found freedom and a moment of culinary inspiration give them a
hobby, an income and even a new nickname for Beauty. Can they begin a
happier, sweeter life - without Dad?
A charming, page-turning and heart-warming story from this beloved author.
JACQUELINE WILSON is an extremely well-known and hugely popular
author who served as Children's Laureate from 2005-7. She has been
awarded a number of prestigious awards, including the British
Children's Book of the Year and the Guardian Children's Fiction Award
(for The Illustrated Mum), the Smarties Prize and the
Children's Book Award (for Double Act, for which she was also
highly commended for the Carnegie Medal). In 2002 Jacqueline was given
an OBE for services to literacy in schools and in 2008 she was
appointed a Dame. She was the author most borrowed from British
libraries in the last decade.
'A brilliant writer of wit and subtlety' THE TIMES
'She should be prescribed for all cases of reading reluctance'
INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY
'Has a rare gift for writing lightly and amusingly about emotional
issues' BOOKSELLER
