Another instalment in Jacqueline Wilson's highly popular Sleepover series featuring Daisy and her friends - and Daisy's sister Lily.
The summer holidays have finally arrived, and Daisy is bored. Daisy is glad she won’t have to see her worst enemy Chloe for a while but she longs for a proper holiday at the seaside, building sandcastles, eating lots of icecream and maybe even spotting a mermaid in the sea. Daisy’s sister, Lily, wants to come too but, she uses a wheelchair which can make trips to the seaside tricky. Especially with all that sand!
Daisy’s summer gets a bit more exciting when she starts looking after her neighbours’ dog, Scruff. Daisy has always wanted a dog of her own to walk and cuddle! She knows Scruff would love a trip to the seaside just as much as her.
Will Daisy, Lily and Scruff get their icecream-filled dream holiday and maybe even have a Seaside Sleepover?
Sleepovers is one of Jacqueline Wilson's bestselling books and the series is perfect for newly confident readers who are navigating primary school friendship issues. Full of relatable details and gentle confidence-building messages, these books are a great place to start your Jacqueline Wilson journey.
Jacqueline Wilson was born in Bath in 1945, but spent most of her childhood in Kingston-on-Thames. She always wanted to be a writer and wrote her first ‘novel’ when she was nine, filling in countless Woolworths’ exercise books as she grew up. As a teenager she started work for a magazine publishing company and then went on to work as a journalist on Jackie magazine (which she was told was named after her!) before turning to writing novels full-time.
One of Jacqueline’s most successful and enduring creations has been the famous Tracy Beaker, who first appeared in 1991 in The Story of Tracy Beaker. This was also the first of her books to be illustrated by Nick Sharratt. Since then Jacqueline has been on countless awards shortlists and has gone on to win many awards. The Illustrated Mum won the Guardian Children’s Fiction Award, the 1999 Children’s Book of the Year at the British Book Awards and was also shortlisted for the 1999 Whitbread Children’s Book Award.
Double Act won the prestigious Smarties Medal and the Children’s Book Award as well as being highly commended for the Carnegie Medal. The Story of Tracy Beaker won the 2002 Blue Peter People’s Choice Award.
Jacqueline is one of the nation’s favourite authors, and her books are loved and cherished by young readers not only in the UK but all over the world. She has sold millions of books and in the UK alone the total now stands at over 35 million!
In 2002 Jacqueline was awarded the OBE for services to literacy in schools and from 2005 to 2007 she was the Children’s Laureate. In 2008 she became Dame Jacqueline Wilson.
I’d never read a Jacqueline Wilson book before, so I decided to find out what made her such a beloved author, so I picked up Seaside Sleepover, her newest story. It follows Daisy, who's stuck at home for the summer, dreaming of seaside holidays, ice cream, and friends. 🧜♀️ But things aren’t so simple: her older sister Lily uses a wheelchair, and that makes beach trips a bit more complicated (ever tried pushing wheels through sand?). Still, Daisy’s determined to make their dream holiday happen, especially when she gets the chance to look after a scruffy, crazy dog named Scruff 🐶 What really stood out to me is how warm and inclusive the story is. There’s casual LGBTQ+ representation (the queer uncle!), disability is shown thoughtfully and positively through the sister and her best friend, who also sign in Makaton, and the characters feel like real kids with real issues. 💛🌊🍦 This is the kind of quiet, easy book I would have loved reading on the beach in summer when I was 6–9. Especially with the pretty illustrations – although it did throw me off that they eat pie and the illustration shows burgers? The book could also have done with another edit, as I found quite a lot of typos.
It was one of the best books I’ve ever read probably the best to be fair my favourite part about the book was the main sleepover and when daisy got the Privilege to have her own dog(a teacup poodle 🐩 )because she was so good at looking after scruff and training him.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
This was just okay. Not bad, but not great. I liked the cameo, and for once JW remembered the past story (cookie) correctly in terms of referring to Gerry’s abuse.
I wonder how long the time jump was in regard to the ending of cookie- I’m assuming a year or so? More? It was a little confusing. Dilly has a shop now, however disappointingly (have explained why in other posts) they still live with Mike. Beauty calls him uncle Mike now, and it’s hinted that him and Dilly aren’t together, but Beauty still hopes they will be (I thought anyway). She also described her rabbit at one point as since passed away, but it wasn’t super clear if she was referring to Birthday or her new rabbit from Sam.
Like the last sleepover book (tbsitw) it seems to be continuing the trend of making Daisy’s friends not look that great/disloyal like they did with Bella and Amy there. I thought at the end it was suggesting she was growing apart from Emily, which was a shame.
I liked her friendship with Beauty.
Same opinion RE Lily as I had in the last one. As it’s not much of a time jump (Daisy and Chloe’s sleepover parties are referred to as their last birthdays) it’s a shame they had to change Lily’s disability so drastically.
In the first sleepovers book, Lily hated camping because it was different, but she likes camping in this book. I don’t know whether you’d count that as a continuity error or not.
Natalie seemed a bit grumpier and spoilt this time round, she got on my nerves a bit. But we didn’t know her that well last time I guess, as she only popped up at the end.
I like Gary a lot- but I’m not sure what I think of the drag act bit. I’m aware that’s a controversial opinion. It’s the same opinion I have of these drag queen story time type events. Although to give Gary his due, he had permission from the parents and made sure he made it child appropriate including costume. I did think it unnecessary and mean when Emily relayed her mums thoughts to Daisy about Gary (disapproving of drag around your child is one thing, calling someone weird is another) though like I said JW seems to want to alienate Daisy’s friends from her in these new sleepover books and this is just another example of that.
I liked the new setting/holiday trip and the way she described the food and the picnic was making my mouth water. But yeah, too different from the original sleepovers (especially without a time jump) for me to really see it as canon.
It’s a shame it was so short, less than 200 pages. I sort of felt it was a bit unfinished, I’d have liked to see Emily and Daisy make up at the end, and see Emily (and Bella and Amy’s) faces when she heard that Chloe was there. Would be interesting if Chloe stopped her hostility at school. The afterword about the neighbour was a nice touch.
Would probably give the book as a whole 3/5.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
This is one of the best Jacqueline Wilson books in my opinion! A perfect summer read. It is quite a long book but didn't take long to read at all! The pictures were beautifully illustrated as always and it was just all in all amazing!
An easy, enjoyable read that takes a while to get to the titular seaside sleepover but is fun throughout regardless. Glad that Scruff got his happy ending.
I actually attempted to start reading this book while we were away on holiday in Blackpool I think I only read about four pages so I went back to the start as that was quite a while ago now. Holiday was between the 26th and 30th of may.
It is now the 12th of June almost 2 weeks later so I decided to restart the book
When Dora the dog is kicked, I was a little concerned before learning she isn't a real dog but a toy spaniel.
It was really lovely to read that Jacqueline had included a character who uses makaton Lilly struggles with her arms and legs.
I also like the name of the dog next door, scruff, really makes you visualise A scruffy dog.